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STAINED GLASS TOURS IN FRANCE 
STAINED GLASS TOURS IN ENGLAND 
A STAINED GLASS TOUR IN ITALY 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

OF 

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 




General Roehamheaii. 

After a ski'teh attribiilcil to lie I'Vrsen, uide-iii'-caiiip In UimIiuiiiIichii. 



FEENCH MEMORIES 

OF 

EIGHTEENTH-CENTUEY AMERICA 



BY ^^ 

CHARLES H. SHERRILL 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1915 






Copyright, 1915, bt 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published October, 1915 




NOV -5 1915 

(S)CI.A414406 



TO 



MY FOREFATHERS 

WHO TOOK PART IN THE STBCGGLE FOB AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 

RECOMPENSE SHERRILL 

JACOB SHERRILL 

JEREMIAH SHERRILL 

DIRCK WTNKOOP 

SOLOMON DAY 

JOHN BOYLAN 

THIS PICTURE OF EARLY AMERICAN SOCIETY 

AS SEEN THROUGH CONTEMPOBABT 
FRENCH EYES 

IS REVERENTLY DEDICATED 



FOREWORD 

If the reader be not pleased with the following 
sketch of early American customs, he should blame 
a certain ancient sofa, and not the author ! For it 
was the said sofa that caused these hues to be 
written, and it came about in this way: Among 
some old furniture handed down in our family is an 
unusually long mahogany sofa, upon which, says 
tradition, General Lafayette frequently sat when 
he came to take tea. Tradition further alleged 
that in the memoirs of some Frenchman (name not 
given) this fact was set forth at length. Curi- 
osity to read what this unknown had to say upon 
the subject led through such pleasant hterary 
country that soon the original purpose of the 
quest gave way to a constantly growing interest 
in these memoirs and records of the last quarter 
of the eighteenth century, from the battle of Lex- 
ington till the transfer of the Federal Government 
to the city of Washington. While studying an- 
cient stained glass the author gradually realized 
that the art's advanced state at the beginning was 
due to its being merely mosaic transferred from 
the wall to a window so that the light could shine 

[ vii ] 



FOREWORD 

through, thus enhancing its color value. WTiat he 
has tried to do in this case is to collect the mosaic 
out of dusty archives and ancient books, and then 
set it up where the hght of to-day could shine 
through these bright memories and reveal a com- 
pleted picture of our ancestors and their times 
colored to the life. Although no reader of this 
book can ever receive therefrom one-tenth the 
pleasure it gave in the writing, nevertheless, the 
author hopes that it may serve to encourage more 
and frequent journeys into the hterary country it 
maps — perhaps those journeys will justify the 
writing of the book. 

Charles H. Sherrill. 

20 East 65th Street, New York City, 
September 1, 1915. 



vni 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Dedication v 

FoBEWOED vii 

Chapter I 
Our French Visitors 1 

Chapter II 

Dancing, Visits, Music, Cards, Conversation, Eti- 
quette 31 

Chapter III 

Dress and French Fashions. Courtship and Mar- 
riage 54 

Chapter IV 

What Our Ancestors Ate and Drank; Their Cus- 
tom OF Toasts, Etc 74 

Chapter V 

American Physical Traits and Temperament, and 
THE Effect of Our Climate 108 

Chapter VI 

City Life, and Especially in Philadelphia, 
Charleston, and Boston 135 

[ix] 



CONTENTS 
Chapter VII 

PAGE 

City Life (Continued). Newport, Prov'idence, 
Hartford, New Haven, /Vlbany, Baltimore, New 
York, New Orleans, and Washington . . 157 

Chapter VIQ 
Country Life 181 

Chapter IX 
Travel — Its Conveniences and Inconveniences . 205 

Chapter X 

Education, Colleges, Newspapers, Interest in 
Public Affairs 232 

Chapter XI 
Reugious Observances 261 

Chapter XII 

The Learned Professions: Law, Medicine, Archi- 
tecture, ETC 274 

Chapter XIII 

Labor, Manufacture, Merchant Marine, and For- 
eign Trade 288 

Chapter XIV 
The Allied Armies 307 

Bibliography 

French Authorities Consulted and Records Ex- 
amined 329 

[x] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

General Rochambeau Frontispiece v' 

After a sketch attributed to De Fersen, aide-de-camp to Rochambeau. 

rACINO FAOE 

Due de Lauzim 10 '^ 

From the painting of the surrender of Yorktown, by John Trumbull, in 
the Yale School of Fine Arts. 

Due de La Rochefoucauld 24 "^ 

From a drawing by J. Guerin. 

City dancing assembly invitation 32 

From the original in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

Elizabeth Bowdoin (Mrs. Temple) 36 

From the original crayon, by John Singleton Copley, in possession of 
Winthrop Tappan. 

The Red Lion Tavern, near Philadelphia, as it is at pres- 
ent, where a "frolick de melons" was held annually in / 
August 38 

Richard Peters . . ' 42 i'' 

From the painting by Rembrandt Peale in the Pennsylvania Academy of 
Fine Arts. 

Head-dresses of the eighteenth century 60 ^'^ 

Comte de Segur 78 [/^ 

From a portrait appearing in his volume of "Mdmoires." 

The New Theatre, Philadelphia , . 140 i^'^ 

From an old print in the collection of Charles A. Munn. 
[Xi] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAOB 

View of Second Street, north from Market Street, with 

Christ Church, Philadelphia, about 1804 .... 146' 

Boston — as shown in an early print 154 

From the collection of Charles A. Munn. 

Saint John de Crevecoeur, 178G 174 

The United States Capitol at Washington 178 

From the collection of Charles A. Munn. 

Mercy Warren, wife of General Warren 238 ' 

I''rom the painting by Copley. 

The colleges at Cambridge 240 

After the engraving by S. Hill in the collection of Charles A. Munn. 

Ezra Stiles, president of Yale 242 

From the portrait by Reuben Moulthrop, 1794. 

Buildings of Yale College, New Haven 244 

From the engraving by A. P. Doolittle, 1807. 

Nassau Hall 248 

After an old print which appears in "An Account of the College of 
New Jersey, 1764." 

Dartmouth College, showing chapel and hall .... 252 

From the engraving by S. Hill in the collection of Charles A. Munn. 

City election at the State-house, Philadelphia . . . 258 

From the ori^'inal water-color by ,lohii Lewis Krimmell in the hall of the 
Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 

State-house, Philadelphia, 1778 286 

From an old print in the collection of Charles A. Munn. 

Lafayette 308 

From a portrait painted by C. W. Peale, in 1780, for Washington. 

Reduced from copperplates of French sketches of 
American military types 320 

From the collection of the author. 

[xii] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

OF 

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 



CHAPTER I 
OUR FRENCH VISITORS 

" Oh ! wad some power the giftie gie us to see 
oursel's as ithers see us," sang Burns. If ye will, 
gentle readers, ye may have the "giftie" for the 
taking, if your wish be to see how "ithers" saw us 
during those formative years when our national 
liberty was being heated in the melting-pot of 
war, and poured into the mould of constitutional 
government. And what other nation can show 
such friendly, such sympathetically appreciative 
historians, such kindly "ithers" as were the 
French who wrote of us in those days when our 
nation "lay a-borning",^ The spirit in which 
they set about their study of us is well expressed 
by the Comte de Segur to his wife: "I conform 
to their habits, I respect their customs, for that 
is the only way to know the Americans well." 

There are two entirely different ways in which 
to write history. One is the time-honored manner 
of the "one-man book," a picture of some portion 
of a nation's hfe drawn by one pen, and from the 
sole point of view of one author. But is this 

[i] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

method as truly descriptive of the people de- 
scribed as it would be if, instead of being limited 
to one author's thought upon the subject, it could 
be broadened so as to include the points of view 
of many observers from widely differing angles 
— foreign observers preferably, so as to secure im- 
partiaUty? In other words, to construct a con- 
temporary mosaic picture made up of bits struck 
off from many men's brains ! Although beset 
with difficulties, would not such a task, if accom- 
phshed, possibly be fuller in its truthfulness than 
the story of any one liistorian ? 

And what are these difficulties P First, there 
must exist a sufficient number of reports upon the 
particular epoch under consideration; next, the 
writers must be so diversffied in character and 
type as to assure a wide scope of material; then 
the period selected must have possessed such in- 
terest abroad as to arouse the best and most 
sympathetic interest in these foreign narrators; 
and, lastly — most awesome difficulty of all — the 
work of compilation that such a history with so 
many roots must entail ! 

But in our case all these difficulties dissolve into 
thin air, like a mirage in the desert, when we ap- 
proach and examine them. The life of the Ameri- 
can people during the quarter of a century which 
elapsed between the battle of Lexington (177o) 
and the installation of the Federal Government 

[2] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

at the new city of Washington (1800) was of such 
engrossing interest to the French as not only to 
produce a series of about seventy memoirs, but 
also to insure that their authors' acute minds 
were keenly aroused to the scenes taking place 
under their eyes. So interesting are these human 
documents that the most forbidding difficulty of 
all— the work of compilation — proves to be a de- 
hghtful occupation, a labor of love. And then 
as to the difficulty of finding writers of sufficiently 
diversified type, we shall be met with a most 
dehghtful surprise. Although the authors con- 
sulted were all Frenchmen, so many were the 
angles from which they observed, and so greatly 
did their points of view differ, that, taken to- 
gether, their observations cover the entire field 
with amazing completeness. Not only can we 
draw from the narrative of ordinary travellers, 
but also from all sorts of specialized and contrast- 
ing types — a royalist exile hke the Due de La 
Rochefoucauld, or Brissot, the Girondin repub- 
Hcan, a eulogistic marquis, or a captiously criti- 
cal philosopher, a botanist, a geologist, a book- 
seller, or a farmer — from Crevecoeur, who Hved 
so long among us as to spoil his French, and the 
Comte de Revel, who spent only twenty-four 
days in our land (all in the trenches at Yorktown), 
from the Chevaher de la Luzerne, the Minister 
who greatly admired us, to Beaumarchais, the 

[3] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

government agent, who sometimes ridiculed us — 
as perhaps was to be expected from the author of 
"The Barber of Seville" ! Nor are we hmited to 
these memoirs, numerous though they be, in pre- 
paring this sketch of our country's yesterday as 
seen through French eyes, for the archives of the 
various departments of the French Government 
are filled with a rich store of reports of those times 
written home by diplomats, soldiers, and sailors. 
Then, too, there are many private letters, some 
pubhshed and more unpublished, wliich lend in- 
timate touches so necessary to our picture of the 
long ago. Surely no important epoch of any 
country's life has ever been so fully or so sym- 
pathetically described by the people of another 
nation. 

Many French writers upon America have pur- 
posely been left unquoted because the authors 
wrote at second hand, and had not themselves 
visited our country and seen conditions with 
their own eyes. Obviously, they do not serve our 
purpose so well as the writings of the men who 
lived with and fought alongside our ancestors, 
and brought away with them that indescribable 
something which KipHng says ever exists when 
two strong men meet — the bond of human sym- 
pathy. Then, too, sundry of the writers are of 
small value to us because they were so engaged 
in recording miUtary details as to include Httle 

[4] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

or nothing about the Uf e of their American friends ; 
some of these, hke Admiral de Grasse, and Bou- 
gainville (whose memory is dehghtfuUy embalmed 
in the gorgeous purple-flowered vine that bears 
his name) were engaged in naval conflicts off our 
coast, and lacked land service in America during 
the period we have chosen. We have left un- 
touched the hterature describing such French set- 
tlements in America as Asylum, Scioto, etc., for 
the obvious reason that their customs were French, 
not American. 

A most important fact added by these personal 
narratives to the general history of the period is 
that although the French Goverimaent was un- 
doubtedly swayed by political considerations in 
lending assistance to America, hoping thus to 
strike England in a vital spot, it is obviously true 
that these individual French annahsts were in- 
spired not only by disinterested friendship, but 
also by a cordial interest in our new experiment 
at hberty. They were alhes of the heart, not of 
the scheming brain. Says Brissot in his preface: 
"You will see in this book of travels the prodig- 
ious effect of liberty upon customs, industry, and 
the improvement of the human race. This is the 
encouraging picture which these travels will offer 
to the friends of hberty." Indeed, so genuine 
was their regard for their American friends as to 
bhnd them to many unrelated faults, and to leave 

[5] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

their narratives more flattering than our ancestors 
deserved — a very agreeable discretion on their part, 
say we ! 

One feels vastly more interest in a tale told by 
one of our own friends than by an unknown — the 
story at once ceases to be impersonal and takes on 
an intimate flavor. So, without delay, let us pro- 
ceed to make the acquaintance of these friendly 
eighteenth-century Frenchmen before we settle 
ourselves to hear their engaging comments upon 
our ancestors. A most delightful group of person- 
alities they will prove to be, alike only in being 
Frenchmen and in their friendly attitude to the 
customs and people of the new-born American re- 
pubKc, but in every other respect a most diver- 
sified gathering. 

We shall find that they will naturally faU into 
groups of varying size, either by reason of their 
professions, personal traits, inclinations, or turns 
of thought. Some of them, like Talleyrand, 
Chateaubriand, or Segur, were already on the 
road to brilliant futures and the Temple of Fame; 
while others, like Brissot, Custine, de Broglie, 
and de Lauzun, will be forever sadly grouped in 
our memory as fellow victims of the guiflotine. 

Many of them were of the warrior caste, but 
(anomalous though it be) it is from (hose devoted 
to this stern profession that we shall glean most 
of our lighter hints of American life. While some 

[6] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

came here to fight, still others left home because 
of civil strife in France — temporary exiles await- 
ing on om* hospitable shores the retm^n of more 
peaceful conditions in the Old World. More than 
a few will prove to have visited our land equipped 
with a philosophical turn of mind, for it must not 
be forgotten that to be a philosopher was a repu- 
tation then highly esteemed. A few were natural- 
ists and seekers after facts connected with re- 
claiming the wilderness, and new conditions of 
soil and chmate, so full of interest to inhabitants 
of lands where nature had long been servant of 
man. A few were merchants, to whom commerce 
and its opportunities vastly overshadowed all 
other human interests. One only was a woman, 
the Marquise de la Tour du Pin, but her pen 
pictures are the best of all — so gay, so brave, so 
discriminating. 

It is for us to make the first advances to these 
folk of two centuries ago, so, hat in hand, let us 
approach the first group, and make the acquain- 
tance of those representatives of the warrior caste 
sent to our aid by Louis XVI. 

At their head stands the steady, resourceful 
commander-in-chief of the land forces, General 
Rochambeau, already well on in age and experi- 
ence when he was selected by his king to command 
the little French army of six thousand men landed 
in Providence, R. I., to aid the struggfing colonists. 

[7] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

Close by him is the charming but irresponsible 
Marquis do Chastellux, welcomed everywhere by 
Americans of every rank in life, and delightfully 
responsive in his account of this welcome. When 
he officiously wrote to the French Minister, criti- 
cising Rochambeau, and telling that the plan of 
the alUes was to attack New York City, the 
letter fell into the hands of the English, who, de- 
ceived as was Chastellux regarding our real pur- 
pose, returned it to Rochambeau. Most sig- 
nificant of that general's character and knowledge 
of men was his handling of this insubordinate 
letter; he sent for Chastellux, showed it to him, 
and then threw it into the fire ! This reveals at 
a glance the natures of the two men, and it also 
explains why Rochambeau's homely comments 
contain so much of value concerning the Ameri- 
can Hfe he saw going on about him. 

Near Rochambeau stands Baron de Kalb, who 
was sent to America as an investigator by the 
French Government before ever the war began, 
and who had so glorious an end at the battle of 
Camden, fighting for our independence. 

Baron Cromot du Bourg and Baron Louis de 
Closen, both aides-de-camp of the commander, 
will prove most engaging comrades, so clear was 
their insight into the young American manhood 
they came to know so well. De Closen com- 
mented both with pen and pencil, and the pages 

[81 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

of his note-book are enlivened with sketches of 
American damsels who caught his fancy. 

More serious in vein will be Commissary Claude 
Blanchard, and more precise in his observations. 
He learned what he could of Americans, but his 
chief thought was always for the welfare of the 
French troops. One of the few criticisms he re- 
ceived from his commander was on account of the 
poor quality of American bread — surely no fault 
of the hard-working quartermaster. 

More serious than Blanchard in cloth, but far 
less so in his point of view, was the worthy chap- 
lain. Abbe Robin, whose writings contain more 
than a few hints on fashions and the ways of 
American women. 

By way of sharp contrast we will turn next to 
the Due de Lauzun, the dashing soldier but un- 
principled man. We shall do well to forget the 
immorahty of his memoirs (which, Sainte-Beuve 
said, alone provided sufficient excuse for the French 
Revolution!), and remember only that the por- 
tion reporting his stay in America is entirely free 
from that reproach. Remember, too, the episode 
outside New York when he rode back under a 
heavy fire to recover his hat which had blown off ! 

Lieutenant-General Mathieu Dumas made care- 
ful notes of his experiences while serving under 
the French colors in our country, but left them 
behind him in a box at Doctor Bowen's house in 

[91 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

Providence. He thought they were lost, but 
forty years later Mrs. Ward, sole survivor of the 
Bowen family, gave them to General Lafayette 
in New York to return to their owner. It is un- 
fortunate that Dumas's memoirs deal almost ex- 
clusively with military events, and say but httle 
of the people whose battles he was fighting. 

Comte Guillaume de Deux-Ponts so distin- 
guished himself in the savage charge on the Eng- 
hsh redoubts at Yorklown that he was decorated 
by Louis XVI, and immortalized by Trumbull in 
his picture of the surrender of Cornwalhs, now 
hanging in the rotunda of the Capitol at Wash- 
ington. It is interesting to recall that all the 
French officers in that picture were painted from 
life by Trumbull in 1787, at Thomas Jefferson's 
house in Paris while the latter was American 
Minister to France. 

That the Comte Joachim de Revel should have 
occasionally been severe in his strictures upon 
American ways is not to be wondered at, for he 
was landed from the French fleet at York town, and 
for twenty-four days and nights fought in the 
trenches without sleeping in a bed or getting a 
chance to change his clothes. Never did foreigner 
receive so poor an example of American hospitahly, 
and we cannot begrudge him the joy which he 
experienced when once more back in liis bunk 
aboard sliip. 

[lo] 




Due de Laiizun. 

From the painting of the surrender of Yorktown, by John 
Trumbull, in the Yale School of Fine Arts. 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

Prominent in this group of warriors is Admiral 
Comte de Grasse, whose fleet played so important 
a part in the Yorktown victory by preventing the 
English navy from succoring their land forces, 
but here again we shall be disappointed, for his 
memoirs deal with naval technicahties alone, and 
not at all with hfe on shore. One of his officers, 
however, Chevaher Aristide Aubert Dupetit- 
Thouars, known later for his trip round the world, 
gives a merry account of his adventures on the 
shores of Chesapeake Bay, where he took most 
kindly to the toasting habit then so prevalent 
among us. A very human sailorman was Dupetit- 
Thouars, and quite outspoken and unpliilosophical 
when he took pen in hand. 

Count Axel Fersen, popularly remembered 
as the devoted friend who drove the coach in 
which Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette tried to 
make their escape from Paris, has much to say 
in his vivacious memoirs of the days he spent in 
America while fighting in Rochambeau's army. 

Nearest to us of all this group of fighting French- 
men is a young officer with a curiously shaped 
head — pointed face and low brow — a youth who 
risked his king's displeasure to cross the ocean and 
help us. He was a human battery of enthusiasm 
for hberty and Americans, so much a part of us 
that he led our troops in the assault on the York- 
town redoubts, and named his son " George Wash- 

[II] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

ington" — so close to our hearts ever since that 
every schoolboy in our land can tell his heroic 
story — our beloved Lafayette — so energetically 
and enthusiastically brave in our cause, and yet 
of so thoughtful a modesty as to insist that Amer- 
ican volunteer officers should outrank officers of 
equal grade in our ally's army ! From liim we 
shall quote freely, for no more sympathetic pic- 
ture exists than his of the people he knew and 
loved so well. 

Associated with Lafayette there will be found 
the Comte de Segur, son of the French Minister 
of War, and himself later Ambassador to St. 
Petersburg, and also the gallant Vicomte de 
Noailles, who marched all the way on foot from 
Newport to the Hudson to set his men an example 
of endurance. These three young men had been 
intimates at the French court, and both Lafayette 
and de Segur married sisters of de Noailles. 

Another intimate friend of these three was the 
Prince de Broglie, and it is easy to imagine his 
and de Segur's disappointment at being unable to 
share Lafayette's exciting experience in America, 
their arrival here being delayed until September, 
1782, when the active fighting and its attendant 
glory were past, although the French army had 
not yet embarked upon its return voyage. Both 
of them travelled extensively, and they record 
their experiences delightfully, especially the frankly 

[12] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

irresponsible de Broglie, who upon his arrival in 
America "only knew a few words of English, but 
knew better how to drink excellent tea with even 
better cream, how to tell a lady she was pretty, 
and a gentleman he was sensible, by reason whereof 
I possessed all the elements of social success." 
It is, perhaps, because of de BrogUe's own dis- 
appointment in missing the fighting that he re- 
ports so picturesquely the tale of young Bozon 
de Perigord, who, ordered to return to France, 
disguised himself as a private and tried to smuggle 
himself on board a ship carrying French troops 
bound for active service in the West Indies. 

Next we come to four cousins of de Broglie's, 
the de Lameth brothers. This gallant quartet, 
each of them a colonel, is represented in the lit- 
erature of the time by the memoirs of Theodore, 
who, though not in the United States and there- 
fore unable to throw light upon our hfe and cus- 
toms, does give us a vivid picture of the fight at 
Yorktown, in which his brother Charles was twice 
badly wounded at the head of his hundred grena- 
diers that breached the paHsades protecting the 
Enghsh redoubts so as to permit of the French 
assault. Alexandre de Lameth, another of these 
four brothers, shared Lafayette's long captivity 
in Austria. 

Another of the military observers was the 
Comte de Pontgibaud ("a French volunteer of 
[i3] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

the War of Independence," he calls himself), 
whose story was of such interest as to be pubhshcd 
in English as well as in French. In closing the 
hst of soldiers sent to our aid by France, let us 
remember that the German-born Steuben was 
selected, paid, and sent here by the French agent 
Beaumarchais, and that thereafter he signed him- 
self de Steuben and not von Steuben, as inscribed 
below his statue in Washington. 

Next beyond the military group we shall ob- 
serve sundry gentlemen whom, to give them plea- 
sure, we will call the philosophers, and although 
less numerous than the band of officers, they are 
double that of the naturalists, the historians, the 
travellers, or the exiled emigres. There are no 
less than half a dozen of them, headed by Jacques 
Pierre Brissot de Warville, the scholar, politician, 
and propagandist, who, though he became the 
leader of the Girondins, paid the penalty of his 
moderation at the guillotine. Pliilosopher though 
he was, he was as immoderate in his abuse of 
Chastellux as in his devotion to Crevecoeur, 
Quakers, and the cause of the negroes, nor did 
his altruistic philosophy prevent his signing an 
agreement with French bankers before he sailed 
for America to send them, and them only, certain 
information concerning the pubhc debt of the 
United States and of the individual States, so 
that they could carry on "the speculations which 

[i4] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

they proposed to mal^e in American securities," 
and for this they paid him ten thousand Uvres. 
Few Frenchmen ever visited America better 
equipped with letters of introduction than he; 
of one from Lafayette to Washington we shall 
learn later. Notwithstanding these letters, the 
French Minister, de Moustier, considered liim a 
mischievous person, and would have nothing to 
do with him, which stand was perforce followed 
by Brissot's old friend, Crevecoeur, then serving 
as French Consul in New York. This same de 
Moustier, later on Ambassador to Berlin, and in 
1791 Minister for Foreign Affairs, left in the ar- 
chives of the Foreign Office many interesting docu- 
ments touching American commerce. All the 
foregoing, however, in no wise affected the value 
or interest of Brissot's writings, for he was a good 
friend of our country. 

Etienne Claviere will chiefly be remembered by 
us as the man who induced Brissot to visit America, 
and who collaborated with him in one of his books. 

Another of the same group was the Gallicized 
Itahan, Mazzei, less memorable for his persistent 
efforts to introduce the culture of the vine in 
America than for having been the man who by 
his indiscreet publication of a confidential com- 
munication embroiled Thomas Jefferson with 
Washington. Mazzei lived for several years near 
Monticello, Jefferson's home in Virginia, and 
[i5] 



FRENCH ISIEMORIES OF 

ended his varied career by becoming privy coun- 
cillor to the king of Poland, after which he retired 
on a Russian pension and died in Italy at the 
ripe age of eighty-five. Another friend of Jeffer- 
son's was Pierre-Samuel Dupont de Nemours, who 
at his request wTote in 1800 an elaborate treatise 
on national education in the United States, what 
it was and what it ought to be. 

Two more of this group, J. E. Bonnet and M. 
Jh. Mandrillon, w'ere rather more statistical than 
philosophical, and are chiefly useful as providing 
certain dry bones for our structure, leaving us to 
seek the flesh and red blood in the writings of 
their contemporaries. 

Although the Marquis de Marnezia and Roux 
both philosophized concerning French emigration 
to our western country, they disagreed radically as 
to its expediency, the former being as optimistic as 
the latter was pessimistic. 

Moreau de St. Mery, whose diary reposed so 
long in the archives of the Ministry of the Colonies 
in Paris before being published by the Yale Uni- 
versity Press, was such a practical philosopher as 
to foresee the certain future of the impoverished 
emigre Talleyrand, and befriend him during liis 
stay in America — to his own advantage when the 
great man had come into power. Not only is 
St. Mery of great service in our researches, but 
also to any student of Talleyrand, for aU of the 

[16] 



/ 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

many letters that St. Mery received from him 
are carefully copied into the latter's diary. It 
was this same painstaking diarist who had already 
codified the laws affecting the French colonies for 
Louis XVI, and yet it was under his presidency 
that in 1789 the electors of Paris, against that 
king's wishes, voted to establish a national militia. 

For safety's sake — to prevent quarrelhng — there 
stands well apart from this group of philosophical 
folk a pair of critics, for so we can best describe 
Ferdinand M. Bayard and Chevalier Felix de 
Beaujour. Bayard was the more active of the 
two, and therefore the more interesting, while 
Beaujour (later on Consul of France) was rather 
pompous in his attitude toward men and things, 
a trait evidenced by the hundred-thousand-franc 
monument he erected for himself before his death 
in the cemetery of Pere La Chaise, Paris. 

Contrasting strongly with the pair just de- 
scribed are several naturahsts: General Victor 
Collot, the Michaux, Andre and Frangois Andre, 
father and son, botanists, C. F. Volney (afterward 
a Senator) the geologist, and the famous J. Hector 
St. John de Crevecceur, author of the "American 
Farmer," which he sold for "30 guineas with 
promise of a present if the pubhc hkes the book," 
and wliich was destined to have an instant and 
wide success in English, French, German, and 
Dutch. Two of these men, Michaux and Collot, 

[17] 



FRENCH IVIEMORIES OF 

during their travels here, conducted confidential 
diplomatic investigations for two French ministers 
— the former for Genet, and the latter for Adet. 
Crevecceur, chiefly because of assistance lent to 
the botanical garden of New Haven (like Michaux's 
services to Charleston) was elected an honorary 
citizen of that town. Furthermore, he deserves 
well of all Europeans by reason of his seventy-two- 
page pamphlet urging their use of potatoes ; in this 
work there might usefully have collaborated Gen- 
eral Marion, who proved to the British troops how 
well Americans could fight on a diet of sweet po- 
tatoes ! Another foreigner even more interested in 
gastronomies, and one who left many amusing 
anecdotes of his three years here, is Brillat Sa- 
varin. 

Another small group will be chiefly known to 
us as travellers — Etienne Marchand, who early 
wrote of what is now Alaska, Baudry des Lozieres, 
Mflfort, Bossu, Berquin-Duvallon, and Perrin du 
Lac, who described Louisiana, soon to join our 
Union of States, and Captain M. Bourgeois (also 
for some time an inhabitant of New Orleans), who 
might be termed a Pan-American writer, so com- 
pletely does his list of cities visited cover our 
western hemisphere. 

Perhaps the most picturesque group of all is 
that of the agents and diplomatic representatives 
sent us from the French Foreign Office, and it 

[i8] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AIVIERICA 

certainly includes surprisingly differentiated per- 
sonalities. Among them are the Chevaher de la 
Luzerne, admiring us and by us admired, and 
the indiscreet Citizen Genet, so unwise in his 
activities as to necessitate his recall. There is 
the modest Bonvouloir (whose political reports, 
written in a preparation of milk, were invisible 
until heated by a red-hot shovel), and his opposite, 
Pierre Augustine Caron de Beaumarchais, better 
known from his authorship of "The Barber of 
Seville" and "Marriage of Figaro" than for his 
series of remarkable letters to Vergennes, setting 
out the pohtical advantage to be gained for 
France by aiding the American colonies against 
England — arguments which, thanks to their skil- 
ful use by Vergennes (then Minister of Foreign 
Affairs), caused Louis XVI to decide in favor of 
that momentous step. Of this same Vergennes 
Jefferson wrote: "He has very imperfect ideas of 
our institutions, and no confidence in them"; but 
it must never be forgotten that it was neverthe- 
less he that won over his royal master to our 
cause. The responsibihty for that decision was 
Vergennes's, and he risked his entire future on its 
success. He knew men, and the Ministers he sent 
us from the French court were far more in touch 
with our repubhcan institutions than those se- 
lected by the First French Repubhc. 

The French Minister first accredited to us was 

[19] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

Conrad Alexandre Gerard de Rayneval, one of two 
brothers in the Foreign Office. Vergennes always 
referred to him as " Gerard," reserving the full fam- 
ily name for the other brother. It is fehcitously ap- 
propriate that much should have been written of 
this period by a modern French diplomat and dis- 
tinguished man of letters, Ambassador Jusserand, 
than whom no more successful foreign represen- 
tative has ever visited Washington. Following 
Gerard, the complete hst of ministers between 1775 
and 1800, with the dates of presenting their let- 
ters of credence to our government, is Chevalier de 
la Luzerne (November 17, 1779), Count de Mous- 
tier (February 26, 1788), Colonel Jean de Ter- 
nant (August 12, 1791), Edmond G. Genet (May 
17, 1793; diplomatic relations with him were 
suspended by our government, August 15, 1793), 
Joseph Fauchet (February 24, 1794), and Pierre 
Auguste Adet (June, 1795). Of these, Colonel 
de Ternant might have joined our soldier group, 
for he was Lieutenant-Colonel and Inspector with 
our forces in the south, and was captured at the 
surrender of Charleston. He spoke English flu- 
ently, and was "a man of wits and talent," ac- 
cording to ChasteUux. 

The last group of all is in many ways the most 
interesting, and comprises the names of four tem- 
porary exiles from France who found intolerable 
the political troubles accompanying the French 

[20] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

Revolution. Ill assorted they will certainly seem, 
for they are the Yicomte de Chateaubriand, Tal- 
leyrand (later Prince of that name), the Due de 
La Rochefoucauld, and the Marquise de la Tour 
du Pin. Of these the two former will prove less 
useful to our purpose than the others, and for 
widely differing reasons — Chateaubriand as being 
too poetic, and Talleyrand for excessive brevity. 
Chateaubriand's love of the picturesque caused 
him to be fascinated by the habits of our Indian 
tribes, and he devoted so much enthusiasm to his 
discussion thereof as to leave but little for our 
forefathers and their ways. Nor were his obser- 
vations of Indian customs nearly so convincing as 
Perrin du Lac's, or as Captain Rossu's accounts 
of his beloved AUabomons (Alabamans) and 
Akangas (Arkansas) . Milfort, by reason of twenty 
years spent among our Indian tribes, was the best 
qualified to chronicle their ways. The Creeks 
made him their War Chief, which possibly explains 
the dedication of his book to Napoleon Ronaparte. 
Of Talleyrand's private hfe while in America 
the less said the better. The fact that he had 
been Rishop of Autun seems to have escaped his 
memory during his stay in Philadelphia, where 
Washington dechned to receive him — some say 
for political reasons (to please the French Minister, 
who protested strongly against his reception), 
and some say for social reasons. Perhaps it was 

[21] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

a combination of both. In any event, it did not 
interfere with the high opinion of our future wliich 
he attained after extensive travel in all parts of 
the country, an opinion which found practical 
expression in his entering upon a land specula- 
tion with property in Maine, which he purchased 
from General Knox, as well as with another large 
tract in Virginia. It was while visiting the Mar- 
quis and Marquise de la Tour du Pin on their 
humble farm near Albany that he learned of the 
events of the ninth of Thermidor, including the 
death of Robespierre, which opened the way for 
his return to France and subsequent great career. 
The diary of the Marquise de la Tour du Pin, 
especially that part which treats of her stay in 
America, is altogether charming, and gives a de- 
lightful picture of these distinguished scions of no- 
bility rising at four o'clock every morning to 
make butter for their living, but on Sunday 
dressing up in their best and repairing to the more 
congenial atmosphere of the Schuyler and Van 
Rensselaer homes in Albany. It is evident on 
every page how warmly she reciprocated the sym- 
pathy everywhere extended to them in this land 
of refuge, beginning with the moment when the 
good folk of Roston took her cropped hair to 
mean preparation for the guillotine, before escap- 
ing from Paris. Alas ! for her, that she had to 
learn of American journalistic enterprise by read- 

[22] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

ing in one of our gazettes that her father, Colonel 
Dillon, had perished on the scaffold ! 

Another visitor to her humble farm was the 
Due de La Rochefoucauld, like herself an exile. 
In the eight volumes which he wrote upon his 
travels and studies in America during the years 
1795, 6, and 7, we shall find a wealth of material 
upon which to draw. 

In addition to this long list of early visitors, 
there also exist other later Frenchmen equally 
efiicient in their friendliness — men like Ambas- 
sador Jusserand, Vicomte de Noailles, Leon Chot- 
teau, and Henri Doniol, modern chroniclers of 
the French soldiers and sailors who fought in 
America, and three eighteenth-century men, Hil- 
liard d'Auberteuil, Abbe Raynal, and Frangois 
Soules, students and writers of our history in 
those early days, even though they never saw our 
land. Amazing, is it not, that so many French- 
men should have devoted their pens to the cause 
of our independence and the praise of American 
manhood in those formative days of our nation- 
building ? 

An illuminating conclusion deducible from their 
collective writings is that, because our ancestors 
had long enjoyed great political freedom and were 
fighting to prevent its withdrawal, our revolu- 
tion was rather a war to retain rights than one to 
secure a hitherto unenjoyed liberty, as was the 

[23] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

French Revolution, This fact helps to explain 
why our revolution was followed by a stable re- 
pubhcan government, which was not the result 
in France. Tliis also explains why the customs 
and manners of oiu* people changed hardly at all 
during the period of twenty-five years that sepa- 
rated the battle of Lexington from the beginning 
of the eighteenth century, the period during which 
our French friends had us under the closest ob- 
servation. Consider how greatly everything in 
France altered during the quarter century follow- 
ing their revolution, 1789 to 1815, and it will help 
you to realize how stable by contrast was our 
manner of hving during the same period following 
our uprising. Nor is this the only great problem 
of national hfe upon which light is gained by a 
study of the French observers of America during 
this critical period. 

Great interest w as felt among the French in the 
Society of the Cincinnati, that famous military 
order instituted May 10, 1783, by American and 
French officers with George Washington as Presi- 
dent General. Louis XVI gave it his official sanc- 
tion at Versailles December 18, 1783, and became 
its Patron. So great was the influence of this so- 
ciety in its early days that many feared, because 
its membership was hereditary, that its aristocratic 
tendencies would endanger our republican form of 
government. As one proof of how real that danger 

[24] 



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From a drawing by J. Giierin. 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

then seemed it is amusing nowadays to recall that 
Tammany Hall was founded May 12, 1789, for the 
avowed purpose of acting as a counterweight to the 
aristocratic Cincinnati ! Of the French mentioned 
in this chapter there belonged to the Cincinnati: 
Lafayette, Rochambeau, de Grasse, Chastellux, 
Dumas, de Noailles, CoUot, Deux Fonts, Lauzun, 
Charles, Alexandre and TJ'heodore de Lameth, Bou- 
gainville, Segur, Broglie, Custine, Fersen, Blan- 
chard, du Bourg, Bozon de Perigord, Closen, Pont- 
gibaud, Ternant, Gerard, and Luzerne. 

Some of the memoirs were written under a pseu- 
donym, and pubhshed outside France in order to 
avoid the official censor. So repressive an influ- 
ence did this censorship exert that many com- 
plaints were made that it robbed French presses 
of much business otherwise obtainable from Amer- 
ican writers unwilling to be exposed to annoying 
excisions, to say nothing of the long delays neces- 
sitated by this official supervision. Crevecoeur 
printed his first book, "Letters from an American 
Feirmer," in England and in Enghsh, but when 
he came to bring out his "Voyage dans la Haute 
Pennsylvanie, etc.," he did it in Paris and in 
French, protecting himself, however, by announc- 
ing that it had been written in English, and that 
he had only translated it. Mandrillon published 
both his "Voyageur Americain," and his "Spec- 
tateur Americain," in Amsterdam, alleging that 

[25] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

the first was written by an unknown Englishman 
by order of Lord Chatham, the prime minister, 
and translated into French by "M. Jh. M." 
When, two years later, he printed the second book, 
he had grown bold enough to lay aside the trans- 
lation subterfuge, although still unwilling to put 
more than "M. Jh. M." on the title-page, and 
further conceahng his identity by adding "Ne- 
gociant a Amsterdam." Bonnet published his 
"Reponse aux Principales Questions, etc.," at 
Lausanne, giving as the author "un citoyen des 
Etats-Unis," while Mazzei printed his "Re- 
cherches" at CoUe, and signed it "un citoyen de 
Virginie." In the latter book there appear four 
letters on the unity of legislation written by the 
Marquis de Condorcet, but here again we have 
the author's identity concealed from the censor 
by the pseudonym "Bourgeois de New Heaven," 
an unintentionally flattering spelling of New 
Haven, Connecticut, which had conferred the 
honor of citizenship upon the author. Bourgeois 
printed his book in London, and d'Auberteuil his 
in Brussels — both of them being in French. 
That it was considered worth while to take all 
this trouble to put books on America into the 
hands of French readers shows conclusively how 
keen must have been the public interest in that 
subject. 

In order to reproduce all the details possible 
[26] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

of the panoramic picture painted by our French 
friends, the author has examined not only all 
their available memoirs unpublished or pub- 
lished, but has also searched through the amaz- 
ingly complete archives of the French Govern- 
ment (deposited in the Archives Nationales, the 
Bibliotheque Nationale, and several of the Min- 
istries), opened to him with that courtesy for 
which the French are so justly renowned. 

A collector of these early memoirs will occa- 
sionally encounter an anomalous value set upon 
certain books, and an attempt to puzzle out the 
causes for these seeming discrepancies in cost will 
lead him along pleasing paths. He will find that 
General Mathieu's work is still in demand as a 
text-book for students of military service, and is 
therefore never to be cheaply had. Querard ex- 
plains the rarity of Marquis de Lazay Marnezia's 
pamphlet, "Lettres ecrites des rives de I'Ohio," 
by saying it was seized by the police. The first 
edition of the memoirs of the Due de Lauzun was 
one of the very few books pubhshed by Honore 
de Balzac during his short (and unsuccessful !) 
career as a publisher, and it is therefore snapped 
up by collectors of unusual books. There were 
but twenty-three copies printed of the first edi- 
tion of Chastellux's travels, and that, too, by the 
printing-press on board the French fleet at Provi- 
dence, which easily accounts for the price set 

[27] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

upon a copy. The first edition of the so-called 
memoirs of Admiral de Grasse proves upon investi- 
gation to consist of only about a dozen prints of 
his story of the engagements leading up to his 
defeat in the West Indies by Admiral Rodney 
and the English fleet, these few copies being in- 
tended for use at the court-martial before which 
he was tried. General Collot's memoirs (post- 
humously pubhshed, by the way) are rare because 
the bookseller who bought the entire edition, 
both French and English, deliberately destroyed 
all but three hundred of the French and one hun- 
dred of the English copies, hoping thus to in- 
crease their sale value. The collector will find 
that interesting facts like these will be constantly 
appearing to increase the delights of his fascinating 
occupation. 

If the said collector turns his attention to the 
prints and other illustrations of the period, he 
will soon learn that, although there was a wealth 
of them in England just then, especially of politi- 
cal caricatures, the opposite was true across the 
Channel, for the French had but few illustrations 
of interest deahng with the momentous facts then 
taking place. Fewer still are there prints to be 
had of American events, and most of these are 
allegorically represented, and therefore lack those 
details illustrating customs and home life which 
we would have wished. 

[28] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

At the back of this book will be found a list of 
the authorities consulted. It is with real plea- 
sure that the author acknowledges his special in- 
debtedness to the gentlemen in charge of the 
Library of the French Foreign Office, of the Ar- 
chives Nationales, and of the great collection at 
the Bibhotheque Nationale; to Senator Pierre 
Baudin, who, while Minister of Marine, gave per- 
mission to study the records of his ministry; to 
Ambassador Robert Bacon; to several friends in 
the Library of Congress; to Governor Simeon E. 
Baldwin of Connecticut; to Rev. Anson Phelps 
Stokes of Yale University; to Mr. Henry Vignaud, 
the learned collector of Americana ; to Mr. Charles 
A. Munn; to Mr. James Hazen Hyde; to General 
Asa Bird Gardiner; to Mr. William C. Lane, Li- 
brarian of Harvard University; and lastly, to a 
number of antiquarian booksellers of Paris, who, 
understanding the purpose of this volume, helped 
in ways for which no financial recompense was pos- 
sible. 

The collecting of the available information and 
its reduction by selection have been so interesting 
that the hours devoted thereto seem in the retro- 
spect but minutes. As the work progressed, the 
author's amazement constantly grew that the 
people of a foreign race should not only have plen- 
tifully spilled their blood for us, but also should 
have so voluminously recorded the saUent social 

[29] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

characteristics of the new nation they had helped 
to its feet. It is the writer's earnest wish that 
these pages may assist in reviving the memory 
of France's splendid service to the fellow citizens 
of Washington. 



[3o] 



CHAPTER II 

DANCING, VISITS, MUSIC, CARDS, 
CONVERSATION, ETIQUETTE 

"Come, miss, have a care what you are doing," 
shouted the Master of Ceremonies to a damsel 
who was permitting a bit of gossip to interrupt 
her turn in a contra-dance. "Do you think you 
are here for your own pleasure?" That such 
disciphne should have characterized a Phila- 
delpliia assembly in 1781 was almost as surpris- 
ing to the French officer who saw it as it is be- 
wildering to us in these free-and-easy days of 
tango teas and complete surrender to that invad- 
ing thief of society's waking hours ! How cut- 
and-dried were the Philadelphia dancing-parties 
of those times was recorded in great detail by 
the brilhant Marquis de Chastellux, the French 
officer whom American society did its best to 
spoil, and who repaid its attentions by his amia- 
ble account of American Hfe. Rut hsten to fur- 
ther details of this same assembly: "A Man- 
ager, or Master of Ceremonies presides at these 
amusements. He gives to each dancer a folded 
ticket which is numbered, and thus it is chance 

[3i] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

which decides the partner that you are to have 
and must keep the w liole evening. All the dances 
are arranged in advance, and are called out in 
order. These dances, like the toasts which they 
drink at table, have a certain political flavor. 
One is called 'The Success of the Campaign,' 
another 'The Defeat of Burgoyne,' a third 'The 
Retreat of Clinton.' The managers are gener- 
ally chosen from the most distinguished officers 
of the Army. At present this important post is 
confided to Col. Wilkinson, who is the army 
clothier, that is to say, charged with uniforming 
the troops. Col. Mitchell, a short, stout man of 
fifty years, a great horse lover, and recently in 
charge of the army transport both for the Ameri- 
can as well as the French armies, used to be 
Master of Ceremonies, but when I saw him he 
had just quitted that distinguished position, and 
danced as a simple citizen. They say that he 
used to exercise his authority with much severity." 
That the securing of partners was admittedly 
troublesome appears from the legend, "The 
ladies will be so obliging as to provide themselves 
with partners before the evening," printed on 
the eleven hundred invitations issued by the 
French Minister for the ball he gave Philadelphia 
society when, in 1782, an heir was born to Louis 
XVI. One happy solution of the partner prob- 
lem was noticed by Perrin du Lac: "Ordinarily 

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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

a young lady attends a ball with a young man 
with whom she dances constantly throughout the 
evening; that is always the case when he is her 
sweetheart. Sometimes a young man who has 
come alone to a ball is unable to dance at all 
because no one is willing to accept his invitation." 
How lacking in repubhcan simphcity were these 
balls of the new repubhc appears from the re- 
port of one in Pliiladelphia, written by Minister 
Adet to his government, February 23, 1796: 
"Yesterday evening they gave the President a 
ball, the subscription for which was, as is cus- 
tomary, opened a few days before. All that 
luxury, flattery, idolatry could imagine was there 
combined. There were only lacking Body Guards 
and the red and blue ribbons of decorations to 
enable one to imagine himself at the Court of a 
King. Courtiers were certainly not lacking." 

Another admiring visitor to testify concerning 
the dancing-parties of those days was the Comte 
de Segur, son of the French Minister of War, 
whose conclusion after attending numerous balls 
in Providence, was: "I do not remember to have 
ever seen anywhere more gaiety and less confu- 
sion, more pretty women, well-dressed, full of 
grace, and with less coquetry." This same de 
Segur had formed one of an almost inseparable 
trio at the French court, the other two being 
the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Vicomte de 

[33] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

Noailles, and it was a great blow to be left be- 
hind when they, first one and then the other, 
went off to the American war. Of de Noailles 
one has to learn at second hand, but he has al- 
ready been introduced as the officer who, when the 
French moved out from Newport to join Wash- 
ington on the Hudson, marched on foot all the 
way in order to set his men an example of en- 
durance. Made of splendid stuff were the French 
who joined in our struggle for independence, and 
that nearly seventy of them wrote their impres- 
sions of American society and its customs shows 
how abundant is the material from which to draw 
an account of our forefathers whose friendship 
they earned and enjoyed. One after another 
they shall step forward to contribute to our pic- 
ture of the American hfe they knew, and while they 
are so contributing, we shall come to know and 
love them as did our ancestors long ago. But now 
back to our warrior-beau Chastellux and listen 
while he compares a Boston ball with its proto- 
type, the Philadelphia Assembly: "We set out 
together for Dr. Cooper's house, and from thence 
to the Association Ball, where I was received by 
my old acquaintance, Mr. Brick, who was one of 
the Managers. I stayed there until ten o'clock. 
The Marquis de Vaudreuil opened the ball with 
Mrs. Temple; Monsieur I'Eiguille (the elder) and 
Monsieur Truguet each danced a minuet, and 

[34] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

did honor to the French nation by the distin- 
guished and graceful manner of their dancing. 
I regret to say that it contrasted somewhat with 
that of the Americans, who generally are awkward, 
particularly in the minuet. The prettiest dancers 
were Miss Jarvis, her sister, Miss Betsey Brown, 
and Mrs. Whitemore. I found the women very 
well dressed, but with less elegance and care than 
in Philadelphia; as for the hall, it was superb, 
of a charming style of architecture, well furnished 
and hghted. For general effect, good order and 
refreshments, this Assembly was much superior 
to that at the City Tavern of Philadelphia." It 
may console our Boston friends to know that 
more than one of the French commented that 
the Philadelphia ladies did not excel in dancing ! 
Even that practical-minded quartermaster, Blan- 
chard, noticed in Providence that "neither the 
men nor the women dance well; they use their 
arms very awkwardly." 

Chastellux, despite his interest in the frivolous 
side of social life, was too astute to overlook the 
serious note that in those troubled times was ever 
to be heard by those who cared to hsten. Tories 
everywhere imperilled the success of the Ameri- 
can cause, and in recognition of this fact he notes 
that "the Tories have been publicly excluded 
from this Assembly (Philadelphia)" and com- 
ments that "Miss Footman was rather contra- 

[35] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

band, being suspected of not being a good Whig." 
Sundry confirmations of this system of social boy- 
cott are to be found in the official despatches of 
the French Ministers, preserved in the Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs in Paris, to which the author 
was courteously granted access by the French 
Government. Minister Gerard on August 24, 
1778, reports that he had been obhged to give up 
the idea of a ball on his King's birthday, because 
"they wish to establish an absolute line of sepa- 
ration between the Whigs and Tories, especially 
between the ladies." He gives as his reason for 
reporting this plan to ostracize the Tories, "I 
presume, Sir, that you will not be indifferent to 
knowing the moral dispositions of this country," 
with which sentiment we are in hearty accord. 

This same diplomat also wrote home how un- 
willing were the Americans to allow even Congress 
to interfere with so popular a pastime as dancing. 
He tells Vergermes, the French Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, that Congress, at the instigation of Pres- 
byterian delegates from the north, had passed a 
resolution renewing their request that the several 
States forbid dances and theatrical representa- 
tions: "The very day this resolution was pub- 
lished there were held theatricals, acted by army 
officers and Wliig citizens. The next day the 
Governor of Philadelphia gave a ball to a numer- 
ous company !" Even thus early did our people 

[36] 




Elizabeth Bowdoin (Mrs. Temple). 

From the original crayon, by John Singleton Copley, 
poj:iession of VVinthrop Tappan, 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

set their faces against class legislation by Con- 
gress. That this wide-spread love of dancing was 
not incompatible with patriotism is proved by 
the alacrity with which the ladies at a Baltimore 
ball given in Lafayette's honor engaged them- 
selves to make up into shirts for his American 
troops the Unen which he had secm-ed for that 
pm-pose. 

Nor was the worship of Terpsichore confined to 
the upper ranks of society, for "all American 
women, married or single, love dancing. They 
dance either between eight and eleven in the 
morning, or else in the evening from sunset until 
late at night. There you see grandfather, son, 
and grandson at the same party, which shows 
that dancing is done for pleasure, and not for 
display." This last is from the recently pub- 
lished memoirs of St. Mery, long hidden away in 
the archives of the Ministry of Colonies in Paris. 
It may be hinted, in passing, that St. Mery is 
possibly of less value for his deductions from what 
he saw in America than for the sidelight he throws 
on Talleyrand, whom he befriended in exile and 
adversity in Philadelpliia, to be rewarded later 
in France upon Talleyrand's rise to power. St. 
Mery was for some time employed in the Phila- 
delphia office of Daniel Merian, the business 
"name and style" under which the French Gov- 
ernment long conducted a large and profitable 

[37] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

trade in America. It is from St. Mery we learn 
that dancing was every whit as popular in the 
countr^^ as in the cities, and he gives a pleasant 
account of what he calls a "frolick de melons, 
to which all the neighbors come to dance and 
eat watermelons," and which was held annually in 
August at the Red Lion Tavern, a httle way out 
of Philadelphia on the New York road. Such 
a combination of physical and gastronomic ac- 
tivities speaks well for the soundness of our fore- 
bears' constitutions. 

Because the tango and kindred new dances 
now engage public attention, dancing seems en- 
titled to come first in this retrospect of early 
American society as seen through French eyes. 
In similar wise, by way of recognizing the sway 
of that second social tyrant, bridge, cards shall 
come next in order. Hear what the French had 
to say upon a subject so important to the social 
life of France at that time. Says Chastellux of 
an evening spent in Boston: "For the first time 
since I have been in America they made me play 
whisk [sic]. The cards were English, that is to 
say, much prettier and dearer than ours, and we 
marked our points with louis or Portuguese pieces. 
As soon as the party was over the losses were not 
difficult to adjust, because they were faithful to 
the rule established in society since the beginning 
of the troubles, which did not permit playing for 

[38] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

money so long as the War lasted. This law, 
however, was not scrupulously followed in the 
clubs, nor when men played with each other. 
Bostonians hke high play, and perhaps it is for- 
tunate that the War came at this time to moder- 
ate a passion, whose consequences had begun to 
be dangerous." Just before Lafayette left France 
for the first time, the cause of the struggUng 
English colonies had so laid hold upon the pop- 
ular imagination of French court circles (where 
all Americans were indiscriminately called Bosto- 
nians) as to displace whist by the new game of 
"Boston." Card-playing as a pastime was then 
so general a feature of European Hfe that it is no 
wonder the French were surprised that this form 
of gaming was not more in vogue across the water. 
After this glimpse of city hfe, let us change the 
scene to a rainy day at General Nelson's coun- 
try house: "It is not useless to observe that 
on this occasion where fifteen or twenty people, 
of whom all were strangers to the family and the 
land, found themselves assembled in the country, 
and forced by bad weather to remain in the house, 
there was no question of playing cards. How 
many parties of tric-trac, of whisk, of lotto, 
would there have been among us as a necessary 
consequence of an obstinate rain." 

Chastellux points out that another diversion to 
which Europeans would have turned under like 

[39] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

stress of weather was music, which he calls "a 
resource unknown in America," although he con- 
tradicts liimself further on by saying: "Miss 
Tolliver sang several songs with English words 
but Italian music." He further refutes himself 
in this regard by neirrating that in Philadelphia 
"during the afternoon we went to take tea with 
Madame Shippen. It is the first time since my 
arrival in America that I have seen music at a 
social function taking its part in real amuse- 
ments. Miss Rutteledge played the clavichord 
and played it very well. Miss Shippen sang 
with timidity but a very pretty voice. Mon- 
sieur Ottow, secretary to Chevalier de la Luzerne 
(the French Minister) had a harp brought, and 
accompanied Miss Shippen, and also played sev- 
eral pieces. Music naturally brought on dancing. 
The Vicomte de Noailles strung up a violin, 
which he tuned to the harp, and started the 
young ladies dancing, wliile mothers and other 
grave personages conversed in another room." 
Another of his pen vignettes shows that the range 
of songs was not hmited, especially if the re- 
straint due to female society were removed: "The 
Secretary of War, Mr. Peter, gave the signal for 
joy and liberty by singing a song of his own com- 
position, so gay and free that I will dispense with 
giving either a translation or an extract — it was 
really very pretty. lie then sang another one 

[4o] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

more chaste and more musical — a very pretty 
Italian cantabile. Mr. Peter is certainly the 
best Cabinet Officer of both the hemispheres for 
voice and the singing of either grave or gay music." 
Brillat Savarin took part in a pleasant scene at 
Bulow's farm, near Hartford, where the host, "to 
relieve conversation called out from time to time 
to his daughter : ' Maria, give us a song ! ' And 
she would sing with charming modesty, without 
waiting to be urged, the national song, 'Yankee 
dudde' [sic], 'Queen Mary's Lament,' and 
* Major Andre,' all very popular songs. Maria 
had taken several lessons and hereabouts passed 
for a virtuose, but her song pleased rather be- 
cause of the quality of her voice, which was sweet, 
fresh, and clear." 

What role music played at a summer resort hke 
Bath, Virginia, is narrated by B^ard, who jour- 
neyed thither on horseback in ITSS. Bayard was 
one of the few Frenchmen to write of us with that 
caustic criticism which the French can, when they 
choose, use so tellingly that its significant absence 
from most of these memoirs affords a striking proof 
of the kindly attitude of their writers. However, 
this particular quotation of his is moderately genial 
and tells of a gathering from which the formality of 
city life is absent, and where "the ladies are in- 
vited to sing. Those with flexible and melodious 
voices are applauded and don't have to be urged 

[4i] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

to sing again. Everyone is willing to sing because 
they are sufficiently well brought up in the des- 
erts of the New World to dislike those snobs who 
permit themselves to hiss a woman who has 
yielded to the invitations of her friends. When 
a young American woman starts to sing, she be- 
gins by putting on a very grave appearance. 
Her features, which a smile would embelUsh, are 
drawn down; she remains perfectly perpendic- 
ular on her chair, her eyes fixed on the floor — • 
and one wEuts until her voice begins to proclaim 
that she is not petrified." A few years later, we 
find that a change has set in, and that in Boston 
"music, which their Presbyterian ministers for- 
merly described as a diabolical art, is beginning to 
form a part of their education. The piano is 
heard in some wealthy homes." He hopes, how- 
ever, that although music is coming into its own 
as one of the social amenities, Boston women will 
never get the rage for such perfection in it as the 
French; "it is never acquired except at the expense 
of the domestic virtues !" says the serious and in- 
quisitive philosopher Brissot, who brought with 
him in 1788 a letter of introduction from Lafayette 
to Washington, which described him as "a man of 
letters, who . . . greatly desires to be presented to 
you; he intends to undertake a history of America, 
and you will therefore please him very much if 
you let him look over your papers; for he really 

[42] 




Richard Peters. 

From the painting by Rembriindt Peale in the 
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

loves America, writes well, and will set out mat- 
ters in their true light." 

The correct hours for the paying of formal 
visits were so variously reported by the French 
that one is led to believe that there was no set- 
tled rule in this regard, at least when the receiv- 
ing of such welcome visitors was involved. It is, 
however, rather surprising to find in the pages of 
Chastellux: "We went to see the ladies, follow- 
ing the Philadelphia custom where the morning 
is the most suitable time to make visits." 

Of course our love of shaking hands did not 
escape observation. How much depends on the 
point of view ! Baron Closen thought it strange 
that the French custom of men kissing each 
other when they met, even in the pubhc streets 
"caused much laughter among the Americans," 
and he stoutly maintains that "the American 
habit of giving long and violent hand-shakes is 
just as comic as the European kissing custom!" 

The gentle art of conversation has always been 
popular in this country, and our earnest (and 
excessive .^^) practice of it ought to have brought 
us perfection in all its possibilities. Our con- 
versational gifts appealed strongly to the French, 
whose comments thereon are almost all in a fa- 
vorable vein, the most notable exception being 
Felix de Beaujour, according to whom "the 
conversation of the men turns generally upon 

[43] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

politics or upon business — a favorite topic, for 
the American loses no chance to make money. 
Wealth is the subject of all his conversation and 
the reason for all his actions." That most of the 
French admired the state of conversation as a 
pohte art in America is praise indeed from a 
people possessing the high traditions of their fa- 
mous salons of the preceding century. Brissot, 
upon the occasion of a visit to a Boston club, 
was pleased by "the information which they dis- 
play in their conversation." Of that same city 
Mandrillon reports that the conversation, as well 
as "the houses, furniture, clothes, food and cus- 
toms all resemble so closely life in old London 
that it was difficult to find any difference between 
it and that which always goes on in the midst of 
the excessive population of great capitals." What 
adjective would he nowadays use for their popu- 
lation I 

Chastellux, while in Boston, paid " a visit to Miss 
Tudor, where we once more had the satisfaction 
of a quiet conversation, interrupted from time to 
time by agreeable music, which carried us rapidly 
on to the hour when we had to go to the club." 
Equally satisfying were his conversational experi- 
ences in Pliiladelphia, and of one occasion in parti- 
cular he comments so illuminatingly as almost to 
revive the scene and make us participators therein: 
"The 13th I went to dine with the southern Del- 

[44] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

egates in company with the Chevaher de la Luzerne 
and the French travellers. Mr. Sharp and Mr. 
Mutterson were the nearest to me. I entered into 
conversation with them and was very pleased with 
what they had to say ; I was still more so with that 
which I heard the same evening at Madame Mere- 
dith's (daughter of General Cadwallader). It was 
the first time I met this agreeable family, although 
Chevalier de la Luzerne was on intimate terms 
with them, but they had just arrived from the 
country where General Cadwallader was detained 
by some business. Madame Meredith has three 
or four sisters or sisters-in-law. I was astonished 
at the ease and gaiety which reigned in this fam- 
ily, and regretted not to have known them sooner. 
I conversed more particularly with Madame Mere- 
dith who appeared very amiable and well edu- 
cated. For an hour we talked of hterature, 
poetry and especially of history. I found that 
she was well informed on that of France, the re- 
lations of Francis I to Henry IV, Turenne and 
Conde, of Richeheu and Mazarin, — all seemed 
familiar to her, and she treated of them with much 
grace, spirit, and naturalness. While I was talk- 
ing with Madame Meredith, Mr. Linch was en- 
gaged with Miss Polly Cadwallader, and she hke- 
wise made a conquest, so much so that when we 
left them ChevaUer de la Luzerne amused him- 
self greatly at the enthusiasm which their society 

[45] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

had inspired, and our regrets at having known 
them so late. It must be said in honor of the 
ladies that not one of them is what you would 
call pretty." Volney, the geologist, disagrees 
completely with the author just quoted, for he 
considers us a taciturn race, but it is pleasing to 
note that he is convinced "that the domestic 
silence of the Americans is one of the most radical 
causes for their industry, activity, and success in 
agriculture, commerce and the arts." It would 
seem as if our ancestors were as gifted in pleasing 
certain foreigners by silence, as others by con- 
versation ! 

Because they came from France, a country 
where social geology had long been clearly strati- 
fied, it would have been but natural if our writers 
had devoted considerable time and many pages 
to an inquiry anent social classification as prac- 
tised in a repubhc, but strangely enough the refer- 
ences to this subject are but few, although those 
few are illuminating. Nearly all of them take 
frequent occasion to laud the perfect equality 
everywhere to be found in our land. Especially 
did they notice this while traveUing and in places 
of pubhc entertainment, as will appear in the 
chapters devoted to those subjects. Even miU- 
tary titles did not carry with them any social 
distinction, says Dupetit-Thouars, who was 
ameized to see a shoemaker who had been a col- 

[46] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

onel, and an apothecary who was a general ! Al- 
though opportunity was equally open to every 
one, our foreign friends did not fail to observe 
that society as usual made certain regulations to 
govern its members. Of course Bayard had his 
customary fling at those regulations, and con- 
cluded that there was among us no other test of 
social rank than the possession of wealth: "The 
inhabitants of Philadelphia, like all citizens of the 
United States, are classified by their fortunes. 
The first class is composed of carriage folk. Almost 
all these gentry, whatever their origin, have their 
coats of arms painted upon their carriage-doors. 
The son of a deported thief has liveried servants 
just like everybody else. Nobility having been 
abolished by the Constitution alone, it is not 
astonishing that so many individuals pretend to 
be descended from ancient English famihes. 
This fad becomes a sort of mania in mercantile 
cities. The second class is composed of mer- 
chants, lawyers, and business men without car- 
riages, and doctors who pay their visits on foot. 
In a third class are found people who exercise 
the mechanical arts. Ladies who possess car- 
riages never so far forget themselves as to receive 
in their homes those of the third class ! The 
people engage in commerce with all the ardor 
which vanity, long credits and the hope of gain- 
ing a fortune easily and rapidly can inspire. The 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

more business a man does the more he is consid- 
ered. 'He is,' say they, 'a very busy man': 
this title obviates the need for meriting any 
other. Business is mentioned with the same en- 
thusiasm which the French employ to describe 
some generous action, or to give a panegyric. 
When a candidate for office publishes his platform 
in the newspapers, he begins by enumerating 
how much he is worth. The position of a rich 
man is the most brilliant which a citizen can 
desire." 

Supposing that this alleged state of affairs were 
not overcolored, it would be interesting to note how 
absolutely consistent it is with the statistics given 
by Price Collier, to show that an English peerage is 
generally the reward of a marked success in the 
business world. The colonists were chiefly of Eng- 
lish origin and, therefore, why shouldn't they have 
exhibited English tendencies in social classification 
as well as in other respects ? Beaujour is one of the 
few to agree with Bayard's extreme view upon the 
power of wealth in our country: "In Europe 
there is greatly praised the equahty which reigns 
among them (Americans) but this equality is less 
real than seeming, because custom establishes in 
society here even more decided hues than else- 
where, and distinctions the more odious because 
they are founded on nothing but wealth, without 
any regard for talents or even for pubhc office. 

[48] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

There is nothing in this country but extreme 
hberty or extreme dependence — everybody is 
master or servant, and you do not see any of 
those intermediate classes which elsewhere serve 
to bridge over the chasm." Talleyrand (des- 
tined later to be Napoleon's Minister of Foreign 
Affairs) sugar-coats this bitter pill of Beaujour, 
for although he admits our passion for acquiring 
wealth, he insists that we have an equally strong 
one for independence. One day in Maine he 
said to a man who had never visited Pliiladelphia: 
"When you go there you will be glad to see Gen- 
eral Washington." "Yes, indeed," replied he, 
and added, with liis eyes sparkling, "and I also 
want to see Bingham who they say is so rich!" 
Washington the champion of hberty, and Bing- 
ham the man of wealth — together they incar- 
nated America for him ! 

Surprising as was our social equality to these 
aristocratic Frenchmen, even more astonished 
were they at the extent to which love of luxury 
evidenced itself in tliis democracy of the new 
world. They came from a land possessing to a 
remarkable extent an admirable inbred frugaUty, 
and they were, therefore, all the more easily 
shocked by the wide-spread love of luxury in 
America. Comte de Segur remarked in Boston 
that "democracy has not banished luxury; no- 
where in the United States did one see so much 

[49] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

wealth and so agreeable society." Nor was this 
true in the cities alone, for Talleyrand found "on 
the banks of the Ohio lliver, in a house built of 
roughly hewn logs, a piano, adorned with really 
beautiful bronzes. When Monsieur de Beau- 
raetz opened it Mr. Smith said to him, 'Don't 
try to play on it, because our piano-tuner, who 
lives a hundred miles off, didn't come this year.' " 
The large number of comments on this subject 
makes it clear that love of luxury had as firm a 
hold upon the wife of the day-laborer as upon 
the wealthiest households. Of Philadelphia, Bay- 
ard says: "Few cities in the world have so large 
a proportion of shops as the Capital of Pennsyl- 
vania. The owners of these shops often indulge 
in luxury beyond their means." It would seem 
that the high cost of living is an ancient, and not 
a recent defect in our body politic. 

Our national purity of speech and manners was 
a never-failing source of surprise to the French. 
Perhaps they gave us more credit in that respect 
than we deserved, because subconsciously aware 
that the upper classes in their own land were 
then touching a lower moral ebb than ever be- 
fore in their history. It is gratifying to record 
of the Due de Lauzun's cynical memoirs that only 
that one-tenth which describes his stay in America 
is clean and wholesome. It is a significant testi- 
monial to his American enviromnent that almost 

[5o] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

the only decent comment upon women made by 
this profligate braggart is one on Mrs. Hunter of 
Newport and her two daughters: "I was never 
in love with the Hunter girls, but if they had 
been my sisters, I could not have been more at- 
tached to them." A miracle indeed ! but, unfor- 
tunately, only a temporary one, for its effect 
seemed to last only so long as he trod American 
soil. Bayard characterizes our national decency 
as prudery, even insisting that it materially re- 
duced our vocabulary, as witness the unwilling- 
ness of our women to use such a word as "shirt" ! 
Beaujour was much fairer than Bayard, and 
thought crudity was a fairer term to apply than 
prudery, and on the whole deals leniently with 
us: "Some writers, and especially the French, 
have praised American customs, while others, 
and especially the English, have decried them. 
Both of them have gone to excess. In this coun- 
try, as in others, there is a mingling of vice and 
virtue, but the virtues appear less attractive 
than elsewhere because they are rarely accom- 
panied by that grace wliich makes them admirable, 
while the vices here appear more liideous because 
Americans know nothing of the art of disguising 
them under a deceitful exterior. The American 
has a crudity of manner wliich displays him in an 
unfavorable light to strangers." Chastellux as- 
sents to crudity as a fair description of our early 

[5i] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

manners, but utterly fails to see the prudery 
which gained Bayard's notice. Moreover, he is 
more hopeful than Bayard as to the future which 
is in store for us: "If music and the fine arts 
prosper in Pliiladelphia, if society becomes easy 
and gay there, if they learn to appreciate pleasure 
when it comes without being formally invited, 
then one will be able to enjoy all the advantages 
resulting from their customs and government 
without having to envy anything in Europe." 
The purity which was generally remarked by 
the French as characterizing our social inter- 
course certainly produced an admirable effect in 
our public life, as Brissot points out: "The fre- 
quent exercise of reason produces among the 
Americans a great number of individuals known 
as men of principle. This name sufficiently in- 
dicates their character, a type so little known 
among us that it has not even been named. 
It is among these men of principle that you 
will find the true heroes of humanity — Howard, 
Fothergill, Penn, Franklin, Washington, Sydney, 
Ludlow." Segur, as son of a Cabinet Minister 
at the brilhant French court, was peculiarly 
fitted to notice the effect of this general purity 
of manners upon the assemblies and balls held 
at Providence, "greater than I ever remember to 
have seen in any other place." 

It is not necessary for one to read many French 

[52] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

memoirs of our revolutionary and nation-forming 
period before being struck by the wide scope of 
the observations therein set out. Notliing seemed 
to escape the attention and even the study of 
those actively intelligent friends from across the 
sea. Highly interesting as they are upon all 
phases of American life, upon none are they more 
peculiarly competent to speak than upon society 
— that was a game of which they knew all the 
rules. Of how they were impressed by what our 
ancestors ate and drank, what they wore, their 
methods of travelling, how they studied and then 
thought, and sundry other alHed matters — we say 
in EHzabethan phrase, "more anon." 



[53] 



CHAPTER III 

DRESS AND FRENCH FASHIONS. 
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 

There is nothing which pleases an American 
more than to discuss sometliing with somebody, 
and just at present no subject is more popular 
than the high cost of living. We are all seeking 
a St. George who can slay this dragon, but thus 
far without success. There are some who with 
more philosophy than flippancy declare that we 
are suffering from the cost of high living, rather 
than the high cost of living — they say it can be 
seen on every side. Curiously enough, that is 
just what the Frenchmen said of our forebears 
at the end of the eighteenth century. Felix de 
Reaujour thought "Americans make immoderate 
use of all the commodities of wealth; no people 
have more clothes. Elsewhere luxury is only to 
be found in the upper ranks of society, but here 
it is everywhere, and it has even penetrated to 
the cottage of the workingman and the country 
laborer, so much so that in the United States 
there is no distinction in dress. The maid is 
dressed like her mistress, and the poorest work- 

154] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

man like the First Magistrate." Even more ex- 
plicit is Chastellux: "Such is the present good 
fortune of America that there are no very poor 
people to be seen and everyone enjoys easy cir- 
cumstances. If some individuals possess less than 
others, so unlimited are the resources ready to 
hand that their minds seem to be occupied with 
what their future condition will be rather than 
with realizing their present one. Such is the 
general equality of condition that those things 
which everywhere else would be regarded as 
luxuries are here considered necessities. So it is 
that the salary of a workingman must not only 
provide subsistence for his family, but also com- 
fortable furniture for the home, tea and coffee 
for his wife, and a silk dress to put on every time 
she goes out. This is the principal cause for 
the high cost of labor, although it is generally 
blamed to a lack of hands." Chateaubriand pro- 
tests that a man visiting the United States as 
he did, expecting to see "the austerity of early 
Roman customs" in the new repubhc, would be 
"scandalized by finding on all sides elegance of 
attire, luxury of equipages, frivolity of conver- 
sation, inequality of fortune, — the tumult of ball- 
rooms and theatricals." Bayard hints that a 
protest was already arising against this whole- 
sale desertion of simplicity (how useless a protest 
we to-day can testify): "In vain Citizen Living- 

[55] 



FRENCH ME:M0RIES OF 

ston, of venerable memory, recalled his fair 
compatriots to their spinning wheels and to con- 
servative simplicity of manners and fortune, for 
he was not listened to, — his writings are not read. 
Even the Quakers, whose luxury is of a less no- 
ticeable sort, cannot escape this criticism. Their 
men have discarded long wristbands, but they 
still wear shirts of fine linen and buy expensive 
cloth from England in which to attire themselves. 
Their wives do not wear feathers, but they are 
as fastidious in their linen as their husbands, and 
their dresses are of Bengal cloth. The Quakers 
load their tables with silver. This excessive 
luxury is the more objectionable because, Hke a 
miser, it absorbs the precious metals, which are 
valuable only in circulation. The rage for luxury 
has reached such a point that the wife of the 
laboring man wishes to vie with the merchant's 
wife, and she in turn will not yield to the richest 
woman in Europe." That they were not collec- 
tors of silver alone appears from Blanchard: 
"They are also very fastidious about cups and 
saucers for tea or coffee, as well as concerning 
glass, decanters and other articles of that sort, 
for daily use." 

Nor was this state of affairs confined to the cities, 
for Brissot observes it in that State where city life 
was peculiarly secondary to that of the country: 
*' The Virginians indulge in a cheap luxury. Peo- 

[56] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

pie who have Hved on intimate terms with them 
assure me that even the richest have only five or six 
shirts, generally only two or three — while they are 
wearing one, the other is being washed — washer- 
women are very expeditious. Their shirts are fine, 
and so are their silk stockings. The trousseau of 
a girl about to be married is composed of only a 
few chemises. I observed also that they do not 
understand the use of napkins, that they wear 
silk scarves, and that instead of using handker- 
chiefs they blow their noses with their fingers, 
or with a silk handkerchief which serves as 
cravat, napkin, etc." He also noticed that 
American women have the fashion of wearing 
shawls. 

Then as now, while the working classes lived 
far better than their prototypes in Europe, they 
also had to pay more for what they bought. 
Brissot tells of a shirt costing fifty francs: "In 
Paris it would be worth four and a half francs 
— everything else in proportion." Gerard the 
French Minister wrote his government, Septem- 
ber 10, 1778: "All merchandize sells for four or 
five times more than it was worth before the 
war, and many articles sell in the proportion of 
six to one." One of his successors. Minister 
Adet, complains bitterly to the Committee of 
Public Safety (July 18, 1795), because of the high 
cost of Hving at the American seat of government : 

[57] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

"The expenditures to which I find myself con- 
demned alarm me. Although I live like an or- 
dinary citizen of Philadelphia — although my 
dinners are ordered with republican frugality — 
I shall spend more than you allow me, and shall 
be unable to serve my country as I would wish. 
... If my stipend sufficed for my expenses I 
would not complain of my inability to save any- 
thing . . . but there are expenses that I cannot 
meet as did former Ministers of large private 
fortune." His immediate predecessor, Minister 
Fouchet, had already paved the way for him by 
reporting home December 20, 1794, that "the 
American people rival in luxury the greatest 
European cities." 

It would be worse than the traditional Irish 
bull — a wild mixing of metaphors — if we should 
attempt to combine "fine feathers make fine 
birds," with the idea that the said fine birds 
would consent to hide their lights under a bushel. 
That strict churchman, Abbe Robin, was not de- 
ceived as to the purpose inspiring some people 
to attend divine service: "Piety is by no means 
the only mot ive which brings crowds of American 
women to church. Having no theatres or pub- 
lic promenades, the churches are the only places 
of public resort where they can show off their 
new and constantly increasing luxury ; they there 
display themselves arrayed in silk, and sometimes 

[58] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

shaded with superb headdresses, their hair piled 
up on frames in imitation of the French fashions 
of some years ago. Instead of using powder they 
wash themselves with soap, which does not always 
suit them; they are generally agreeable blonds. 
The most fastidious are learning, however, to 
adopt European fashions." This observation con- 
cerning the utilizing of church to exhibit one's 
finery is indorsed by La Rochefoucauld: "All 
tlirough America it is the great ambition of a new 
township to build a church; if there be added 
thereto a good tavern, it acquires a certain stand- 
ing among other townships not so well provided. 
Apart from subserving municipal vanity, the 
church is particularly desired by young people of 
both sexes, by the young girls especially, who go 
there to display their carefully made toilettes, 
and to meet their friends." 

Perhaps we have always been a vain people, 
but is a national vanity to be despised which 
caused such wide-spread neatness of attire as 
to ehcit the unanimously favorable comment of 
foreigners.*^ They were quick to notice the ab- 
sence of those rags which in Europe proved that 
equality of opportunity did not exist, and that 
degradation had persisted so long as to create a 
social caste. "Of all that pleases a stranger ar- 
riving in the United States," says Beaujour, 
"nothing is more pleasing than the external 

[59] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

cleanliness noticeable everywhere, in the streets, 
the houses and the clothing. Everybody is de- 
cently dressed. The men wear woollen suits, the 
women cloth dresses, generally white, always 
with clean linen, and nobody is to be seen in pub- 
lic with those hideous rags so distressing in other 
countries." 

No one showed himself better qualified to recog- 
nize whence came the fashions which then as 
always won the hearts of our fair compatriots 
than the observant priest. Abbe Robin, who 
"hardly expected to find French fashions in the 
midst of American forests. The headdresses of 
all the ladies, except Quakers, are high, volu- 
minous and adorned with our veils. One is sur- 
prised to find throughout all of Connecticut so 
active a taste for dress, — I might even say, so 
much luxury amid customs so simple and pure 
that they resemble those of the ancient patri- 
archs." Chastellux found not only this taste for 
French fashions, but also a lady champion eager 
to lead a crusade in their favor, who "has taste 
as delicate as her health. Excessively enthusi- 
astic over French fashions, she only awaits the 
end of this trifling revolution now taking place 
to initiate an even more important one in the 
customs of her nation." In some centres he fears, 
however, that the women are going to extremes; 
for instance, in Annapolis "the luxury of the 

[60] 




+-> 

CI 




EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

women surpasses that of our provinces. A French 
hairdresser is a man of importance there; one 
of these ladies pays hers one thousand ecus 
wages." Baron Closen reports: "The women 
are very pretty, have good style, and dress ex- 
cellently — some even following the French fash- 
ions." So attracted was he by the appearance 
of certain fair Americans as to sketch them on 
the margin of his note-book. Even the serious- 
minded General Rochambeau could not fail to 
notice that "the women have taken up French 
fashions, in which they are deeply interested." 
St. Mery goes more into details: "Philadelphia 
women delight in luxuries, such as ribbons, 
shoes, etc., but no veils or laces, and almost no 
artificial flowers." Our fastidious visitors were 
of the opinion that the prevaihng luxury in dress 
did not of itself teach our women how to use it 
to the best advantage, at least so thought the 
Prince de Broglie: "The ladies of Philadelphia, 
although magnificent enough in their costumes, 
generally do not wear them with much taste. In 
arranging their hair they have less hghtness of 
touch than our French women. While they 
have good figures, they lack grace and make their 
curtsies badly." Although luxury is one of the 
most difficult habits to break, Brissot shows that 
our women could and did, when patriotism de- 
manded it, put aside the insidious dehghts of 

[6i] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

dress: "Even in the larger cities Americans are 
being driven to ruinous luxury; for this reason 
there has been formed at Hartford, Connecticut, 
an association of leading ladies who, in order to 
assist in paying off the Public Debt, agreed at a 
meeting held November 6, 1776, no longer to 
buy gauzes, ribbons, feathers, silk or, in general,, 
any articles demanded by foreign fashions." 

That women should love dress struck the French 
as the most natural thing in the world, but 
that was the only particular in which Ameri- 
can women fitted in with the preconceived no- 
tions of them entertained by those observers 
fresh from an older civihzation and a stricter 
etiquette. Of the many novelties that engaged 
their attention, nothing was more un-European 
than our attitude toward marriage, not only in 
respect to the hberty accorded young people 
while arranging for it, but also in the effect 
wliich marriage later had upon the girls them- 
selves. They are almost shocked at the freedom 
our girls enjoyed, and yet they frankly admit 
that no harm came of it either before or after 
marriage, for they settled down more sedately 
as married women than did the artificially guarded 
and overrestrained jeunes filles of their own 
country, who looked forward to marriage as 
meaning freedom from the petty tyrannies of 
their childhood. Instead of finding marriage ar- 

[62] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

ranged by the parents, according to European 
fashion, this dehcate business, to the surprise — 
nay, consternation — of the Frenchmen, seemed 
entirely confided, forsooth, to the young people 
themselves. St. Mery says: "The choice of a 
sweetheart is without exception made pubhcly, 
and the relatives indulge in no formahties in re- 
spect of it, because such is the custom of the 
country. The chosen sweetheart comes to the 
house whenever he pleases, he takes his beloved 
out walking when he hkes. Often he comes on 
Sunday with a cabriolet to fetch her, and brings 
her back in the evening without anyone asking 
where they have been. Young people sit up 
spooning after their elders go to bed, and some- 
times a late returning servant will find them 
both asleep and the candle burned out — so cold 
is love in that country." 

Let us see what use, according to Crevecceur, the 
youngsters make of the hberty allowed during this 
interesting period: "These young people sit and 
talk and divert themselves to the best of their 
abihty. If someone has lately returned from a 
cruise he is generally the speaker of the evening. 
They often all laugh and talk at once, but they are 
happy and would not exchange their amusements 
for those of the most brilliant assembhes in Europe. 
This lasts until the father and mother return, when 
all retire to their respective homes — the men re- 

[63] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

conducting the partners of their affections. Thus 
they spend many of the youthful evenings 
of their Hves; no wonder, therefore, that they 
marry so early," How wisely the young girls 
set about this important business of choosing a 
life partner appears from Bayard: "The time 
which passes between the proposal and the mar- 
riage is given over to mutual observation. The 
girls insist upon an absolute independence which 
they devote to testing the character of their 
future husband. They wish to learn if he is 
bad tempered, if he is constant, if jealousy will 
not some day render him troublesome or coarse. 
They yield to every fancy which comes into their 
heads, and do everything they can to escape the 
reproach later on of having concealed their im- 
perfections. It is a contest of frankness, inspired 
by the desire for common happiness." Especially 
numerous are the remarks made on the fact that 
young women do not permit jealousy to hamper 
their freedom before marriage. 

Both Brissot and Mazzei make vigorous at- 
tacks upon the hard-hearted bachelors, the former 
admitting, however, that "luxury is already de- 
veloping in this city a very dangerous class of 
men, bachelors, for the extravagance of the 
women makes them fear marriage." And Mazzei 
adds: "As for bachelors, who should be rarer 
here than in Europe (and for well-known reasons), 

[64] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

they are more numerous in Philadelphia than in 
any other American city, while in other parts 
of Pennsylvania they are no rarer than elsewhere." 
He goes on to tell how small is the risk which 
bachelors are running, because they are treated 
so frankly and no attempt made to deceive them: 
"The young girls and men see each other every 
hour of the day, and that too without masks; 
they do not marry unless both are pleased, and 
don't postpone until too late the discovery that 
they have been deceived. The object of both 
sexes is to learn each other's character. It does 
not appear that beauty alone is a particular at- 
traction to young men of wealth, neither is it 
rare for a girl to refuse a man whose face and 
fortune are his only recommendations." 

How much freedom they enjoyed after they 
had made their choice is clear from Brissot: 
"You will see a young girl drive off with her 
sweetheart in a light carriage, and injurious sus- 
picion never interferes with the pure pleasures of 
this trip into the country. When they are 
mothers, Boston women become reserved; their 
manner is always, however, open, kindly, and 
communicative. Given over entirely to house- 
keeping, they busy themselves solely with making 
their husbands happy and bringing up the chil- 
dren." Rochambeau gives a hint that unmar- 
ried girls confined themselves strictly to the 

[65] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

business in hand, and did not waste time on 
married men: "The girls enjoy the utmost free- 
dom until they are married. Their first ques- 
tion is to learn if you are married; if you are, 
the conversation falls flat; once married, they 
give themselves entirely to their new author- 
ity." Of a certain Virginia dame Blanchard 
relates that "they say she is rather gay, which 
is rare in America; but then," he adds, "she 
was born in Europe and did not come here until 
she was seventeen, and seems desirous of going 
back." 

The entire absence among us of the European 
custom of parents providing their daughters with 
marriage portions or "dots" excites many com- 
ments from our visitors. Crevecoeur explains 
why this is true: "At Nantucket, as I observed 
before, every man takes a wife as soon as he 
chooses, and that is generally very young. No 
marriage portion is required, none is expected. 
No marriage articles are drawn up by skilful 
lawyers to puzzle and lead posterity to the Courts, 
or to satisfy the pride of the contracting parties. 
They give nothing with their daughters. Their 
education, their health, and the customary outfit 
are all that the fathers of numerous families can 
afford. As the wife's fortune consists principally 
of her prospective economy, modesty, and skil- 
ful management, so the husband's is founded on 

[66] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

his ability to work, his health, and his knowledge 
of some trade or business." 

Not only was this true of New England, but also 
in Maryland, says Bayard, who sel^s out very clearly 
the many advantages of our system: "They give 
their- daughters at marriage a small trousseau and 
the slave who was the companion of her infancy. 
I wish this were also true in France, for there you 
can wager a thousand to one that a rich girl will 
be married by a man of no dehcacy of feeling, 
but who is in love with her dowry. The victim 
of his cupidity, no longer loved by the vile spec- 
ulator, will have nothing in exchange for what 
she gave him but long sad yeeirs. In the United 
States the adventitious circumstances of fortune, 
with few exceptions, are subordinated to mo- 
rahty, and the two sexes get along very well to- 
gether. There, marriage is a matter of senti- 
ment, and the happiness of the family is of the 
first importance, so that purity of morals takes 
care of itself without need of appealing to a 
magistrate. All the children are brought up in 
the bosom of a worthy family, happy in the har- 
mony thereof, and instinctively organize them- 
selves for that state of fehcity, and become vir- 
tuous when they are grown up." 

Perhaps the greatest surprise of all the bewil- 
dering ones that marriage a Vamericaine seemed 
to furnish our friends from the Old World was the 
[67] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

steadying effect its responsibilities obviously had 
upon those very maidens whose freedom from all 
restraint before marriage seemed destined to 
make them unruly after that ceremony. We 
must remember that it was still the golden age 
when everybody married young, and generally 
"lived happily ever afterward." Crevecoeur is 
but one of many to remark how young they 
married: "A general decency everywhere pre- 
vails; the reason, I believe, is that almost ever>^- 
body here is married, for they get wives very 
young and the pleasure of returning to their 
families overrules every other desire." The 
Comte de Revel, although less than a month in 
America, felt qualified to remark that "in gen- 
eral the married women are more reserved than 
the unmarried ones." How opposite was this 
state of affairs to that existing in Europe ap- 
pears from Mazzei: "In certain European na- 
tions girls must be extremely reserved, and 
especially so with young men, but once married 
they do not bother themselves so far as anybody 
is concerned. In America, on the contrary, girls 
have a good time with the young men, but mar- 
ried women are reserved, and their husbands 
are not so familiar with young girls as before 
they were married." 

"Because girls may go unattended to parties," 
says Perrin du Lac, "married women seldom go. 

[68] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

As custom does not require them to accompany 
their daughters, they generally prefer to stay at 
home and busy themselves with their other children 
or the care of their households." Bayard also bears 
witness to the admirable manner in which married 
women discharge their new duties : "When girls are 
called to undertake the duties of mothers and wives, 
they seem filled with all the dignity of their new 
state. The airs and graces of youth give place 
to a reserve, or rather to a delicious withdrawal, 
the proof of a contented soul enjoying in silence 
the happiness which it absorbs. They carry out 
with fidelity the promise of obedience which they 
make at the altcir. I have seen women whom 
fortune, health, and beauty tempted to every 
pleasure, but who preferred their duty to all of 
them." And how seriously they took these new 
responsibilities was noticed by Crevecoeur: "But 
no sooner has this ceremony been performed 
than they cease to look so merry and gay. The 
new rank they hold in society impresses them 
with more serious ideas than were before enter- 
tained. The title of master of a family neces- 
sarily demands more solid behavior and deport- 
ment. The new wife follows in the trammels of 
custom, which are as powerful as the tyrannies 
of fashion. She gradually advises and directs; 
the husbands, equally obedient to the ancient 
habits of their country, submit without feeling 

[69] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

any impropriety in so doing; were they to act 
otherwise they would be afraid of subverting the 
principles of society by altering its ancient rules; 
thus both parties are perf(?ctly satisfied, and all 
is peace and concord." Segur "saw several 
ladies worthy of admiration for their agreeable 
and sprightly manner in society. Lacking the 
grace of our French women, they nevertheless 
had their own which, for being more simple, was 
none the less attractive." 

Beaujour tells us that in our land of many re- 
ligious sects and much religious freedom, the 
wives generally changed to the religion of the 
husband. But they were free to do as they 
pleased, as Michaux (junior) points out: "Although 
divided into various sects, they live in great har- 
mony, and difference in religion is no obstacle 
to marriage; husband and wife each attend the 
service they prefer; this also apphes to the chil- 
dren when they grow up, and that too without 
the slightest interference from their parents." 
"Often I observed this spectacle," says Talley- 
rand, "for which nothing to be seen in Europe 
had prepared me — in the very same house father, 
mother, and children following peaceably and 
without opposition the religion each preferred. 
Sundays the whole family starts out together, 
but each person goes to his own church." 

St. Mery reports an amusing local custom which 
[70] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

obtained in Philadelphia: "For three mornings 
after marriage the wife serves punch and cold 
refreshments to all her friends; for the three next 
days she gives tea in the evenings, her brides- 
maids assisting her." 

Balch says of those ladies of long ago: "They 
bring up their children with care, and pride them- 
selves on scrupulous fidelity to their husbands." 
We, the children in later generations of the chil- 
dren whom these ancestresses reared, must be 
pardoned an especial interest in what the French 
had to say about the way it was done: "Chil- 
dren are carefully brought up in the paternal 
mansion; there they enjoy the greatest hberty 
and but Httle attention is paid to them. They 
go and come without being subjected to annoy- 
ing questions or forced to make ceremonious 
grimaces called pohteness. They are somewhat 
importunate, and very frank. But although they 
are happy while in the bosom of the family, the 
age of iron succeeds rapidly to that of gold" — 
meaning thereby that schoolmasters were over- 
strict. St. Mery finds children are particularly 
well treated in Virginia, and Bayard observed a 
pleasant instance of their precocity at a country 
house near Winchester in that State: "Dinner 
hour having sounded, we sat down at a round 
table, his daughter, nine years old, doing the 
honors very gracefully in the absence of her 

[71] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

mother." Dupetit-Thouars exclaims, "New Eng- 
land is the home of pretty children," and 
gives such a charming description of them as to 
make it clear that he really loved them. One 
and all agree that American children were badly 
spoiled, and perhaps there are some of us to-day 
who will admit that our customs have not been 
noticeably rectified in that regard. Very much 
in point is Chastellux's anecdote of how thought- 
lessly the Schuyler cliildren wounded the feel- 
ings of the English prisoners temporarily lodged 
in their home: "The second son of Mrs. Schuy- 
ler, seven years old (a spoiled child as are most 
American children — self-willed — now spiteful, now 
amiable, running about the house all day), shouted 
with laughter on seeing the Englishmen and, 
slamming the door on them, cried out, 'You are 
all my prisoners.' This naive remark was cruel 
for them, and made them sadder than they were 
the day before." To this anecdote he adds the 
following general statement: "In America, as in 
England, parents spoil their children when young, 
and abandon them to themselves as soon as they 
are grown up, so that in those two nations, edu- 
cation has never been either as carefully conducted 
or as prolonged as it should be. Indulgence of 
their children when they are small makes them 
petty domestic tyrants; negligence during their 
youth makes strangers of them." It is refreshing 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

to turn from this last comment to a delightful bit 
from Beaujour: "American children are almost al- 
ways prettily shaped, with blond hair, and with the 
freshness of budding roses, and they sparkle in 
the streets of American towns hke field flowers in 
the springtime." 



[73] 



CHAPTER IV 

WHAT OUR ANCESTORS ATE AND 

DRANK, THEIR CUSTOM OF 

TOASTS, ETC. 

What more inspiring rendezvous can we have 
for this incursion into the long ago than the 
dinner-table of George Washington, Commander- 
in-Chief of the American forces. The engaging 
Marquis de Chastellux shall be waiting there to 
greet us, and take up the narrative: "On our 
return to camp we found a good dinner ready 
waiting and about twenty guests. The repast 
was in English fashion, composed of eight or ten 
leirge dishes both of butchers' meat and chicken, 
accompanied by vegetables of different sorts, and 
followed by a second course of pastries, com- 
prising everything under the two denominations 
of 'pyes and powding' [sic]. After these two 
courses they removed the tablecloth and served 
apples and a quantity of nuts, which George 
Washington generally ate for two hours, mean- 
while proposing toasts and indulging in conver- 
sation. These nuts are small, dry, and covered 
with so hard a shell that only a haimuer can 

[74] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

break them; they are served half open, and are 
then picked out and eaten. About half past 
seven we arose from the table, and the servants 
at once came to take it down and shorten it, as 
it had been lengthened for dinner. I was aston- 
ished at this manoeuvre and asked the reason. 
They told me they were going to lay the cloth 
for supper. At the end of half an hour I retired 
to my room, thinking that the General might 
have something to do and was only remaining 
with the company out of regard for me, but half 
an hour later they came to announce that His 
Excellency awaited me for supper. I returned 
to the dining room protesting with all my might 
against this supper, but the General said that he 
was accustomed to take something in the eve- 
ning, and that I need only sit down, eat some fruit 
and take part in the conversation." This long 
stay at table had a convincing apologist in the 
Comte de Segur: "Temperance was one of 
Washington's virtues, and in prolonging his 
dinner he had but one object, — that pleasure 
of conversation which distracted him from his 
worries and rested him from his labors. His 
table was set every day for thirty. Washington, 
animated by a singular and most disinterested 
love for his country, dechned to receive that 
which they had assigned him as Commander-in- 
Chief. It was almost in spite of him that the 
[75] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

government charged itself with paying liis table 
expenses." When Blanchard dined with Wash- 
ington, he especially noticed that meat and 
vegetables were served together on the same 
platter, and that the salad dressing was of vinegar 
without any oil. Lieutenant-General Mathieu 
Dumas was another who partook of one of Wash- 
ington's dinners, "which was remarkably plain," 
says he. From these as well as from many other 
accounts of Washington's hospitality (for he en- 
tertained all the French officers, and each one 
seems to have written down his experience), it 
becomes quite clear that, as head of the revolu- 
tionary movement he felt that his was the re- 
sponsibility of showing official hospitahty to the 
gallant foreigners who had come so far to fight 
for us. Nor did he fail to perform this duty, 
and that too, in accordance with the best Ameri- 
can culinary traditions. He offered at his table 
American viands cooked and served in the Ameri- 
can manner, and what he and his guests from 
the brilliant French court ate and drank best 
tells how people at that time cared for the inner 
man — plenty of hearty, simple food, washed down 
by quantities of alcoholic beverages strangely in- 
consistent with the more temperate tendencies of 
to-day. 

That Washington's hospitality to our foreign 
guests was not confined to entertaining them 

[76] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

while they were serving our country but also 
followed them home across the ocean appears 
from a letter written him from Paris, October 26, 
1786, by Lafayette: "I have received the hams 
and I am much indebted for this amiable atten- 
tion on the part of Madame Washington. The 
first one was served three days ago at a dinner 
composed of Americans, to which our friend 
Chastellux was invited. They arrived in per- 
fect condition." Of how favorably Washington's 
hospitality impressed the French officers there 
are not a few accounts, but only a couple of them 
enjoyed a similar attention from Mrs. Washing- 
ton—one was Blanchard, who stopped to pay his 
respects at Mount Vernon on his way north 
from Yorktown. He has many amiable things 
to say of the general's wife. In passing it is 
interesting to note that although he speaks of 
Annapolis and Georgetown, there was as yet no 
city of Washington for him to visit. It is im- 
possible now to think of Georgetown otherwise 
than as an outlying section of Washington, but 
this is only one of the many startling differences 
between then and now in our country. Our as- 
similative power as a nation makes short work 
of such sudden changes, nor does it show any 
tendency to diminish now that we are a world- 
power, and are commencing to confront greater 
problems than those around the village pump. 

[77] 



FRENCH I^IEMORIES OF 

From what we know of the excessive daily 
consumption of intoxicants in America at the 
close of the eighteenth century, it seems strange 
that there were so few adverse comments from 
our more temperate Latin friends upon their 
tliirsty Anglo-Saxon associates. "My health con- 
tinues excellent," wrote Comte de Segur to his 
wife, "despite the quantity of tea one must 
drink with the ladies out of gallantry, and of 
madeira all day long with the men out of polite- 
ness." How unusual was water as a beverage is 
amusingly set out by Mazzei: "They consider 
port wine and bordeaux as light, and water is 
banished from every table. A man who arrived a 
little while ago asked me one day at table how 
much water cost. When I told him that all it cost 
was the trouble to fetch it, he added that he had 
thought it a most expensive beverage because he 
had r)!ot been able to obtain a glass of it without 
the greatest difficulty, whilst those who ordered 
wine, cider, beer, grog or toddy were served at once. 
They call a mixture of rum and water grog, but 
when sugar is put in it is called toddy. In 1774, 
finding myself one day at Norfolk at a dinner of 
thirty-two people, and having asked for a glass of 
water, I perceived some confusion among the ser- 
vants, and the water did not arrive. The host, next 
whom I sat, whispered in my ear, asking with a 
smile if I could not drink something else, because 

[78] 




Comte de Segur. 

From a portrait appearing ia his volume of " Meinoires." 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

the unexpected request for a glass of water had up- 
set the entire household and they did not know 
what they were about." That every ramification 
of human thirst received due attention appears 
from the following catalogue of beverages — "both 
hot punch and cold before dinner, madeira or 
Spanish wine, bordeaux in the summer — spruce 
beer and excellent cider are served before the 
wine; formerly English porter appeared there 
exclusively, but it is now replaced by excellent 
porter made near Philadelphia, which so much 
resembles the Enghsh that even English palates 
have been deceived by it. Tliis discovery is a 
real service to America, for by it they are re- 
lieved of a tax to English industry." 'Revel 
took kindly to our spruce beer, and adds: "They 
likewise have a liquor which sells at a high price, 
and is made of peaches, of which they have a 
great quantity, although generally bad, as are 
also their apples and other fruits." Mandrillon 
tells us that "the ordinary drink of the inhabi- 
tants is cider whose excellence equals the best 
white wine. They import rum from the Bar- 
badoes. Madeira and England furnish them 
with wines." St. Mery agrees that cider was our 
usual beverage. None of the French spoke ap- 
provingly of our whiskey, in fact they seemed to 
dislike it, and Perrin du Lac thought it had "the 
most disagreeable taste of anything I ever drank 

[79] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

in ray life. Most of the people partake of this 
strong liquor, which they distill from r^e and 
corn. The drunkenness resulting from it is dis- 
gusting, and its use, no matter how moderate, 
seems to me strongly to affect nervous persons." 
To all of the foregoing the only rebutting testi- 
mony is the casual statement of St. Mery that 
Philadelphians drank iced water in summer and 
made excessive use of hot drinks at other seasons. 
Constant are the flattering remarks upon how 
well our people Uved — we shall come to these in 
detail while considering the various meals then 
customary. Nor was this comfortable and race- 
bettering scale of living confined to the wealthier 
classes — fortunately it obtained in every walk of 
life, for, says Beaujour: "It must be remarked 
that the poorest individual, the ordinary day- 
laborer, is better fed and clad here than in any 
other country. Every day of their lives they 
eat more in the United States than in France, 
and that too of expensive things, and those which 
elsewhere are considered luxuries. They cal- 
culate (based on the receipts of the Custom 
House) that each man consumes annually ten 
pounds of sugar, two and a half of coffee, one of 
tea and about fifteen of molasses." Our citizens 
were so accustomed to a varied diet and to sub- 
stantial food that Gerard, the French Minister, 
reports to his government, September 10, 1778, 

[80] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

that for this reason (and also because of the rise 
in cost of provisions) "in general it appears, on 
trustworthy testimony, that a European army 
of 60,000 men would be well kept on what 15,000 
men cost in the United States." 

Although the Frenchmen understood and ap- 
proved the hour and the importance of our 
dinners, they were surprised, and in some cases 
obviously shocked by our hearty breakfasts. 
Says Chastellux of Philadelphia: "The Ameri- 
can days begin with a heavy breakfast, and as 
they dine late some slices of veal in the morn- 
ing, some cuts of mutton and other trifles of this 
sort sandwiched in between cups of tea and 
coffee, never failed of a good reception. This 
hght repast lasted no more than an hour and 
a half." This hearty American breakfast was 
hardly to the liking of the French, and among 
those who criticise it is St. Mery, who says that 
"in Philadelphia the breakfasts are at nine 
o'clock. They have ham, slices of bread and 
butter, tea and coffee." Brissot complains that 
in Boston "breakfast consisted of tea, coffee and 
meats, both broiled and roasted." 

Not a few references were made to the phe- 
nomenon of coffee with milk in it being drunk at 
breakfast — amazing to the Frenchmen. ' ' Our sup- 
per was frugal enough," says Chastellux, "but 
breakfast the next day was ample; we had ham, 

[8i] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

butter and fresh eggs, and coffee with milk in it as 
a drink. We had become perfectly accustomed to 
the American habit of using coffee with milk in it 
as a beverage while eating meat, vegetables and 
other food." He agrees with St. Mery that nine 
o'clock was the correct hour for breakfast in 
America. Perrin du Lac noticed that "no one 
takes coffee after meals, but almost all the men 
drink it during breakfast," and Roux remarked our 
"immoderate use of tea and coffee at all repasts." 
When the French came to speak of our dimier, 
the principal meal of the day, they treated the 
subject with the deference and earnest attention 
which men of their nation have always felt it 
deserved. The general hour would seem to have 
been two o'clock — so says du Bourg of Boston, 
and SL Mery of Philadelphia, although with the 
latter Chastellux disagrees: "In Philadelphia, as 
in London, one does not dine until five o'clock 
and sometimes not until six." Perhaps the fact 
that Chastellux's Philadelphia friends were more 
fashionable folk than St. Mery's may explain the 
difference, although it must be noted that the 
former gives two as the hour at General Nelson's 
home. Savarin dined at three in New York. 
No disagreement, however, existed as to the 
great length of time spent at table — Lafayette 
writes to his wife from Charleston, June 19, 1777, 
that he sat five hours at a great diimer given in 

[82] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

his honor. Du Bourg would have us beheve that 
"most of the time is consecrated to the table." 

But let us hear what they ate. We have already 
seen what was served at Washington's table, but 
to learn the fare of ordinary folk we will turn first 
to St. Mery: "Dinner in Philadelphia is at two, 
no soup, but roast beef and potatoes, boiled or fried 
cuts, boiled or fried fish, salad, which is sometimes 
shced cabbage [he means cold slaw]. For dessert 
they serve fruit, cheese and pudding. The women 
leave the table after dinner. All the family silver is 
always set out on the sideboard." Another Phila- 
delphia menu is given us by Chastellux: "The 
dinner was served in the American (or, if you 
please, in the English) style, that is to say, it 
was composed of two courses, one comprising the 
entree, roasts, hot dishes, and the other, sweet 
pastries, etc. When these are taken away the 
tablecloth is removed and they serve apples, 
chestnuts and other nuts. It is then that they 
propose healths. Coffee, which comes afterwards, 
serves as the signal for leaving the table." This 
same author thought as well of Boston dinners 
as of Philadelphia ones, for, dining one night at 
Mr. Cushing's in the former city, he says: "On 
this occasion the Deputy Governor perfectly sus- 
tained the reputation to which the Bostonians 
have every right, that of loving good wine and 
good food, and of being very hospitable." As to 

[83] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

the length of these Boston dinners he gives a 
hint when he remarks of one at Mr. Brick's: 
"There were thirty persons present. After dinner 
they served tea, and while it was being taken 
Mr. Brick insisted that we remain to supper." 

Tliis same bon viveur heartily approved of the 
custom American women had of withdrawing 
after dinner, as appeared from his account of a 
visit to a Mr. Wilson: "He gave us a very good 
dinner, and received us with simple and easy 
politeness. Mrs. Wilson did the honors of the 
table with all the attention possible, but we par- 
ticulgo'ly appreciated her leaving at dessert; then 
the dinner began to liven up." Brissot describes 
a quieter entertainment, this time at a Quaker's 
house, but there we also find plenty of food, 
drink, and good cheer, even though the last be 
in a lower key: "I want to send you a descrip- 
tion of a dinner given by one of the richest 
Quakers during the General Assembly in Sep- 
tember, — it affords a curious contrast to our 
splendid banquets. At that time the Quakers 
from the country and neighboring cities crowded 
into Philadelphia; their brothers received and 
lodged thern, and lavished the most affectionate 
hospitality upon them. About twenty guests sat 
down to table. The host was at one end and the 
hostess at the' other. Before beginning, there 
was a moment of silence which the Quakers em- 

[s^] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

ployed to give thanks to the Supreme Being. 
The first course consisted of a large piece of beef 
placed at one end, a ham in the middle, and a 
shoulder of mutton at the other, two soups, and 
four platters of potatoes, cabbage, vegetables 
etc. They drank cider, Philadelphia porter, and 
beer. The host, addressing each guest in turn, 
said 'Help yourself, ask for what you want, and 
make yourself entirely at home.' The second 
course consisted of different sorts of pies or pas- 
tries, two plates of cream, two of cheese and two 
of butter. The servant then came to pour out 
a glass of wine for each guest, but I saw none of 
that tiresome offering of toasts which is so often 
a provocation to drunkenness rather than to 
patriotism. They talked quietly, and it must 
be admitted that this simple repast did not en- 
joy the gaiety of our noisy dinners or suppers." 
The tone of regret with which even so sedate 
a soul as Brissot reminiscently refers to the 
"gaiety of our [French] noisy dinners and sup- 
pers" turns our thoughts to the somewhat de- 
liberate merry-making which reigned after an 
American dinner, as soon as the hour devoted to 
toasts arrived. Bayard says: "The husbands 
remain at table long after the ladies withdraw, 
and this custom is alike in country and city." 
And St. Mery agreed that "women always sit 
down first at meals, but always depart the mo- 

[85] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

ment the men announce they prefer Bacchus to 
Venus." In this connection Mazzei proved a 
gallant champion of the ladies by recording that 
"if the men remain at table too long in order 
to drink more than they should, the women are 
accustomed to withdraw; 1. Because they are 
not interested in excessive drinking; 2. Because 
they have something else to do. The women 
conduct all the domestic affairs of the house, and 
generally with much care; all the keys are turned 
over to them and they take care of everything." 
It is but fair to point out with Segur, that these 
long sojourns at table were necessitated by the 
elaborate system of toasts then in vogue: "Din- 
ner, which, according to the custom of the Eng- 
lish and Americans, lasted several hours, concluded 
by a number of toasts. The more customary 
were those to the Independence of the United 
States, the King and Queen of France, and to 
the success of the AUied Armies, after which 
came private toasts, or, as they are called in 
America, sentimental toasts." That he did not 
approve of the custom is clear: "Two things, 
only, shocked me more than I can say, one was 
the custom, when the time came for toasts, to 
pass around the table a great bowl of punch 
from which each guest was obliged in turn to 
drink." Savarin was much impressed by the 
size of one of these punch-bowls in New York, 

[86] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

"holding enough for forty people — there are no 
such huge bowls in all France." 

Chastellux approves the patriotic toasts, but 
does not hesitate to speak liis mind freely concern- 
ing the tiresome exchange of "individual healths," 
"The formal toasts, as I have said already, are not 
at all annoying, and only serve to prolong conver- 
sation, which is always more animated at the close 
of the repast. They do not require one to go to 
excess, in which they differ greatly from German 
healths and those still obtaining in our garrisons 
and in the country. But one absurd and really 
barbarous custom is that at the beginning of a 
repast and the first time that one drinks, they 
call upon each individual in turn to drink his 
health. It is enough to make the actor of this 
ridiculous comedy die of thirst while trying to 
remember the names of all around a table of 
twenty-five or thirty persons. It is also enough 
to make the unfortunate whom he addresses die 
of impatience because he cannot give proper at- 
tention to what he is eating and what they are 
saying to him, being incessantly called at from 
right to left by cruelly charitable men anxious 
that he shall notice the comphment he is receiv- 
ing. The best bred Americans do not approve 
of this general appeal, and whenever they drink 
individual healths they do it by groups, four or 
five together. Another custom is the despair of 

[87] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

strangers — those general and private attacks 
finishing by regular duels, someone calling out 
to you from the other end of the table, ' Monsieur, 
wiU you permit me to drink a glass of wine with 
you?' This proposition is always accepted, and 
when the bottle is passed you must face your 
enemy (for how else shall I call a man who exer- 
cises such empire over my w ishes !) wait until he 
has poured out his wine and has taken his glass, 
and then drink stiffly with him, like a recruit 
imitating the gestures of his drill sergeant. How- 
ever, I must do tliis justice to Americans, that 
they themselves feel the absurdity of these usages 
drawn from Old England." 

It is from this same Chastellux that we have a 
pleasant picture of an evening spent at the board of 
General Washington — a picture show ing how^ care- 
fully he ordered his toasts: " The tablecloth having 
been removed, some good bottles of bordeaux 
and madeira were placed on the table. Every 
man of sense will no doubt conclude that being 
a French general under the orders of General 
Washington, and likewise a good \N hig, I could 
not refuse a glass of wine when he ofl'ered it; I 
will admit that I deserve little credit for com- 
plying, and that, though less accustomed to 
drinking than any of the others, I accommodated 
myself quite well to the English toast. The 
glasses were very small, and each poured out the 

[88] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

quantity of wine he wished, without anyone 
pressing him to take more. The toast is nothing 
but a halt in the conversation to show that each 
individual performs a part in making up the 
company. I observed that at dinner the toasts 
are attended with more solemnity, — there aiQ 
several formal ones, and others were suggested 
by the General and announced by the Aide de 
Camp, who was doing the honors. Each day one 
of them is stationed at the end of the table near 
the General to oversee the service of the dishes 
and the distribution of bottles. In the evening, 
toasts were announced by Colonel Hamilton, 
and he gave them out as they came to him with- 
out order or formaHty. At the end of supper 
the guests were generally requested to propose a 
sentiment, that is to say, a lady to whom they 
were attached by love, friendship, or mere prefer- 
ence; this supper and conversation lasted gen- 
erally from nine o'clock until eleven in the eve- 
ning, always informal and always agreeable." 

Noticing the importance we attributed to our 
selection of toasts, the French took pains to 
learn if it was their king, or the English one 
who was being accorded this honor and, accord- 
ing to Mazzei, were much pleased by the result 
of their inquiries: "In America they have always 
practised the English custom of drinking to the 
health of the Sovereign after the meal. Before 

[89] 



FRENCH IVIEMORIES OF 

the Revolution the first health was always for 
George III. 'The Nation' has taken his place, 
and immediately thereafter comes Louis XVI. 
I had the curiosity to ask the citizens of several 
different States if, since peace was declared there 
were places where they still drank to the health 
of George III. They all assured me that they 
had never heard of it either in public or private 
houses, but that everywhere they had seen the 
health of Louis XVI drunk." Blanchard even 
overheard the negro servants, after a dinner, 
drinking the health of the French King. 

Minister Adet, writing home to the Committee 
of Pubhc Safety, July 17, 1795, officially recognized 
the pohtical significance of the toasts then being 
generally selected, as indicative of the trend of 
pubhc opinion: "It is enough to read the series 
of toasts proposed in those two cities (Baltimore 
and Philadelphia) to judge of the impression 
made on public opinion by the treaty." The 
following year (September 24, 1796) he sent his 
government a list of the toasts at a dinner given 
him, as showing the state of the public mind. 
Dupetit-Thouars was the only other Frenchman 
thoughtful enough to preserve for our delecta- 
tion a complete list of toasts drunk on a certain 
occasion: "His Christian Majesty and his better 
half, the Queen of France, the King of Spain, 
General Washington, His Excellency the Count 

[90] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

d'Estaing, His Excellency the Count d'Orvilliers, 
the Marquis de Vaudreuil, Dr. Franklin, Presi- 
dent Adams, President Hamcock [sic], General 
Lee, General Gates, Governor Jefferson, Her 
Excellency Mrs. Washington, and at least a half 
dozen more to absent ladies and gentlemen — 21 
in all." Doubtless few if any of our readers 
would welcome a return to this elaborate system 
of alcoholic deluge after our repasts, but before 
becoming too critical of our ancestors, should we 
not consider if its denatured successor of to-day, 
after-dinner oratory, is not even more calculated 
to drive one to drink than the toasts of our early 
society.^ How large a part sentiment played in 
building up that ancient custom may be seen 
from a little picture left us by the Marquis de 
la Tour du Pin: "When breakfast (of which we 
partook in common) was over, he rose, removed 
his hat, and said in a manner full of respect 'we 
will drink to our beloved President.' There was 
no cabin to be found, even deep in the wilder- 
ness, where this loving act for the great Wash- 
ington did not conclude the repast. Sometimes 
they added the health of 'the Marquis,' for La 
Fayette left a cherished name in the United 
States." 

Over against this wide-spread use of intoxicants 
it is but fair as well as chastening to set out the 
prevalence among our people of the tea habit, 

[91] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

for tea was then not only a beverage, but had 
also become an established social episode, with 
an hour set apart to it, and an elaborate and per- 
fectly recognized code of rules. Although the 
use of tea was not confined to what is now in 
England the sacrosanct "tea hour," that be- 
nignant custom was already firmly established 
among us. Nor was it limited in duration to 
one hour, for Balch says: "About five o'clock they 
take more tea, some wine, some madeira, some 
punch, and this ceremony lasts until ten o'clock." 
St. Mery observes: "They drink much tea, 
sometimes with rum in it." Bayard confirms 
the statement that the usual hour for tea-parties 
was five in the afternoon, and he sets out very 
amusingly the formal etiquette which attended 
those functions: " I will give the reader an idea 
of the pleasures of the city of Bath. At five 
o'clock all betake themselves to tea-parties, 
where everything is conducted with the greatest 
ceremony. On the right of the mistress of the 
house are ranged in a half circle all the women, 
as well attired as possible. A profound silence 
follows the arrival of each guest, and all the 
ladies maintain the gravity of judges sitting on 
the bench. A mahogany table is brought and 
placed in front of the dispenser of tea. Silver 
vessels contain coffee, and hot water which 
weakens the tea or serves to clean the cups. A 

[92] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

servant brings in on a silver tray the cups, the 
sugar bowl, the cream jugs, pats of butter, and 
smoked meat, which are offered to each indi- 
vidual, and with which she must coyer her lap. 
The French are often greatly embarrassed when, 
with a cup and saucer in one hand, they are 
obliged with the other to take tartlets, or smoked 
meat cut in thin slices. An elderly American, 
to whom this new style of serving tea was in- 
convenient, after having taken a cup in one hand 
and tartlets in the other, opened his mouth and 
told the servant to fill it for him with smoked 
venison! When everything is ready for the 
feast the ladies produce their handkerchiefs and 
spread them out. When you send back a cup 
you take pains to place the spoon so as to indi- 
cate whether you want more, or have had enough. 
A Frenchman, who spoke no English, and knew 
nothing of this sign language, was distressed to 
see the sixth cup arriving for him, so he decided 
after emptying it to put it into his pocket until 
the replenishments had been concluded." St. 
Mery also testifies (this time at Philadelphia, 
whose ladies "do not excel in dancing, but they 
know how to make tea") that "the hostess con- 
tinues to fill up the teacups unless they are re- 
versed, and the spoon put on top." Chastellux 
speaks to the same eff'ect: "Monsieur de la 
Luzerne took me to drink tea at Mrs. Morris', 
[93] 



FRENCH I^IEMORIES OF 

wife of the Treasurer of the United States. His 
residence is simple but well ordered and neat. 
The doors and tables are of superb mahogany, 
highly pohshed; the locks and andirons delight- 
fully bright; cups set out in a row; the mistress 
of the house very nice looking and very neatly 
dressed, — all appeared to me charming. I drank 
some excellent tea and would have taken more, 
I think, if the Ambassador had not charitably 
warned me at the twelfth cup that I must put 
my spoon across my cup, whereupon this sort 
of hot water torture was ended. 'It is almost 
rude,' said he, ' to refuse a cup of tea when it is 
offered, but it would be indiscreet for the host 
to offer you more when the ceremony of the 
teaspoon shows what are your intentions upon 
this point.' " Dupetit-Thouars soon came to 
learn that if you did not know the proper signal 
"you would be overwhelmed with tea !" 

Nor was their tea signal understood only in the 
Middle and Northern States, for Robin found it in 
Connecticut as well. He also noticed that "they 
take a great deal of tea, the use of this insipid 
beverage is the only pleasure they have; there is 
not a single citizen who does not drink it from 
porcelain cups. The greatest mark of courtesy 
is to offer it. In countries where men live on 
very substantial food and drink, tea may be use- 
ful to the health, but I think it injurious to those 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

where they eat ahiiost nothing but vegetables 
and dairy produce. Perhaps this is one of the 
causes why, with a strong constitution and a 
happy life, they live a shorter time than other 
men. They also blame tea for the loss of their 
teeth." So severe is his indictment of tea-drink- 
ing that it is only fair to recall in passing that 
Robin thought our poor bread was even more 
responsible for the bad teeth than excessive tea- 
drinking. Volney declares that he has reason to 
beheve that "very hot tea, so beloved by Ameri- 
cans of English descent, contributes to increase 
their susceptibility to colds." 

Chastellux shows that Boston is as fond of tea as 
its sister cities to the south, though they seemed to 
take it after dinner rather than as a separate re- 
past. He tells us that at Mr. Brick's house "after 
dinner they served tea," and of another friend, that 
"after dinner he took us to the room of his son 
and daughter-in-law who wished to give us tea," 
and when he dined with the Marquis de Vaudreuil 
— "after dinner we went to t£Lke tea with Monsieur 
Beaudouin"; Du Bourg says that, "in Boston 
they take a great deal of tea in the morning," 
so we can see that somebody or other must have 
been busy drinking tea during every hour of the 
hvelong day. 

It seemed also to be an important factor at pic- 
nics, for Brissot tells us that "one of the principal 
[95] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

pleasures of the dwellers in these cities consists of 
parties in the country with their family or some 
friends. Tea is the basis of these, especially those 
which take place after dinner." Of course so 
thorough an American as Washington did not dis- 
regard this national beverage, and Chastcllux re- 
cords of one of his days spent at headquarters: 
" The dinner was excellent, tea followed dinner, and 
conversation followed tea." This discussion of 
the Chinese herb's wide popularity helps us to re- 
alize how self-denying was the patriotism dis- 
played at the famous Boston Tea- Party — they 
did not hesitate to "mortify their appetite" for 
tea in order to decrease the revenues of the 
English Government and merchants. Chotteau 
recognizes this: "They all drink tea in America 
as they drink wine in the south of France. Tea 
enters into the daily bill of fare. It was on every 
table but the Colonists banished it with enthusi- 
asm, and dried raspberry leaves were offered to 
delicate palates — a detestable drink — wliich they 
had the heroism to find good." 

So much for the principal repasts of the day, 
and now we come to supper, which, according 
to Chastellux, "is not the important meal of the 
Americans." Balch, to the same effect tells us 
that "at ten o'clock they sit down to table and 
there is served a supper which is less considerable 
than dinner." Chastellux while stopping in the 

I 96] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

country house of Mr. John Tracey, near Ports- 
mouth, New Hanipsliire, found that: "At ten 
o'clock an excellent supper was served; we drank 
very good wine. About midnight the ladies with- 
drew, but we continued to drink madeira and 
sherry. Mr. Tracey, following the custom of 
the country offered us pipes." One day in 
Boston he was invited to Mr. Brick's house, and 
"supper was served exactly four hours after we 
had risen from the table. It can be easily imag- 
ined that we took practically nothing. Never- 
theless, the Americans did very well at it. In 
general, they eat less than we during a single 
meal, but they eat as often as they wish — a cus- 
tom which I consider very bad." Blanchard 
also noticed that although "they sit down so 
frequently at table, nevertheless, they are not 
heavy eaters." Another pleasant contribution 
to our supper hterature is from Chastellux, after 
a day spent with General Washington: "The 
General said that he was accustomed to take 
something in the evening, and that if I would 
sit down I need only eat some fruit and join in 
the conversation. The supper was composed of 
three or four hght dishes, of some fruit and above 
all, a great abundance of nuts which were no 
worse received in the evening than they had been 
in the morning. The tablecloth having been 
soon removed, some good bottles of bordeaux 
[97] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

and madeira were placed on the table." Chas- 
tellux also noticed that the popular pastime of 
proposing toasts was sometimes indulged in after 
supper just as after dinner. 

Of all the numerous comments made by the 
French upon American food, none are more 
significant than their decided expressions con- 
cerning our excessive meat eating, the poor and 
(therefore perhaps) little eaten bread, and the 
fact that our people lived well every day and all 
the time, regardless of whether they had guests, 
or whether or not it was a holiday. As to meat, 
Mazzei tells us: "At 37° and 38° of latitude they 
are often, during the summer, more carnivorous 
than the English. They mix butter with their 
meats, and put a great deal in almost all their 
dishes." Brissot found meat so important a part 
of our diet as to authorize his comment: "In 
America pork and beef do the honors of the table 
the year round." He adds: "Fresh meat must 
be much dearer in the country where the houses 
are more scattered, than in the city where the 
everyday needs demand the regular services of a 
butcher." It is difficult to reconcile his use of 
"dear" with another comment of his: "Break- 
fast consisted of tea, coffee, meats, both broiled 
and roasted, and cost ten cents, Massachusetts 
money, for each traveller." He not only finds 
our fresh meat excellent, but also reports that: 

[98] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

"One sees salt beef of theirs which has travelled 
to Bordeaux, to the East Indies, to the West 
Indies and after its return to Boston is still as 
good as ever. They have tried this salt beef at 
Marseilles and on French ships elsewhere, and it 
is beginning to be highly esteemed. Being 
cheaper than that of Ireland, it will no doubt 
soon have the preference." An illuminating 
conclusion from Balch compares our consump- 
tion of meat with that of bread, both in striking 
contrast to the customs of the French: "Dinner, 
which is generally at two o'clock, is composed of 
a great quantity of meat. They eat very httle 
bread." This comparison is elaborated by Beau- 
jour: "In France each individual, taken one 
with the other, children and adults together, 
consumes a pound of bread a day and a half 
pound of meat, or other food which replaces it. 
An American consumes hardly half a pound of 
bread, but on the other hand, at least a pound 
of meat, without counting in other substantial 
foods, such as butter and potatoes, which form 
at least a quarter of his food." St. Mery records 
that "Americans eat as much meat as the Enghsh, 
and more meat than bread. They eat seven or 
eight times as much meat as bread." 

Du Bourg noticed that in Boston "they ate very 
httle bread." Chastellux says that: "At BuUion's 
Tavern, Baskenridge, New Jersey, the supper 

199] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

was so good that one thing alone was lacking, 
and that was bread. They asked us which sort 
we wished, and at the end of an hour they gave 
us what we asked for. In America they often 
substitute for bread httle biscuits that are easily 
made and cooked in half an hour." Our bread 
was one of the few American products of which 
the French consistently vouchsafe no word of 
praise — for them it was always bad. Even so 
experienced a campaigner as Blanchard could 
eat it only after it had been toasted ! While 
travelling in Maryland du Bourg reports: "Their 
only greiin is Indian corn, which accounts for 
their eating only that kind of bread — the mean- 
est and worst in the world." Fersen noticed 
that "in Virginia the people eat nothing but a 
cake made of Indian corn flour, wliich they bake 
before the fire; that hardens the outside a little, 
but the inside is only uncooked dough." Revel, 
recounting his experience at Yorktown, brings 
perhaps the most serious charge against our 
shortcomings as bakers: "This part of Virginia 
appears in general to be unhealthy; all the in- 
habitants that we have seen around our camp 
had thin, pale faces. It is possible that their 
food is partly to blame, for they not only eat 
no bread, but there are some of them who never 
even heard of it. They make a sort of biscuit 
on the hot cinders with corn meal, which they 
[ loo] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

cultivate in great quantities. They consume a 
large amount of dairy products and potatoes, 
which are excellent. They prefer them to bread." 
Robin joins in this general attack on our bakers 
by alleging that "the women, generally very 
pretty, are often deprived of these precious orna- 
ments (teeth) at eighteen or twenty years of 
age," and adds, "I presume tliis to be the effect 
of hot bread. The English, Flemish and Dutch 
preserve their teeth a very long time. The in- 
habitants of Connecticut, who have such fine 
wheat, nevertheless do not know the precious art 
of making it more digestible by kneading and 
fermentation. Whenever it is required they 
make a cake which they put to half-cook on an 
iron plate; the French who went to the war in 
America could not become accustomed to it, 
and taught them to improve on it a little. It is 
to be found passable in the inns, but still very 
inferior to that of our Army." 

American bread was not the only thing to bene- 
fit by coming into comparison with French culi- 
nary standards, for they also introduced a number 
of gastronomic combinations unknown on this side 
of the ocean. Savarin notices that those of his 
fellow emigres "who possessed any talent for the 
alimentary art draw precious support therefrom." 
" On reaching Boston I taught Julien the caterer to 
broil eggs with cheese. This dish, new to Amer- 

[lOl] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

icans, became quite the rage." "Captain Collet 
also made lots of money in New York in 1794 and 
1795 by preparing ices and sorbets for the inhabi- 
tants of that commercial city. The women, es- 
pecially, never tired of so novel a delight — nothing 
could be more amusing than their little grimaces 
while partaking thereof. They were at a loss to 
understand how it could be kept so cold when the 
Reaumur thermometer registered 2G degrees." 

The French did not fail to recognize the im- 
portance so widely accorded "in our midst" to 
pie, which they generally rendered "pye," al- 
though Volney writes approvingly of "paie (pye) 
de pumkine!" It is ahnost needless to say that 
our maple sugar, and especially the extraction of 
the maple sap from the trees, excited the liveliest 
interest, and not a few regrets are expressed that 
we did not export that dainty to France. One 
would infer that the Due de La Rochefoucauld 
was possessed of an exceptionally sweet tooth, so 
full of detail is his description of the preparation 
of maple sugar. 

Almost no mention is made of the eating of 
fish, although they were quick to notice our liking 
for oysters. St. Mery tells us "Americans are 
crazy about oysters, which they eat at all hours, 
and even in the streets. They hawk them about 
the streets with lamentable cries until 10 p. m." 
Mandrillon reports that the oyster trade of New 

[ 102 ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

York City employed two hundred boats. Bour- 
geois says: "The inhabitants of New Rochelle 
(N. Y.) hve off a sea shellfish called lobster, and 
also black fish, the only fish caught there," 

Turtles pleased our visitors greatly, so much so 
that, according to Chotteau, the French officers 
"in Philadelphia ate excellent turtles, and there- 
fore at table, thanks to the numerous toasts, time 
passed quickly." While at Providence Blanchard 
relates. "That same day I was invited to a party 
in the country — a sort of pique-nique [sic] given 
by about twenty men and a group of ladies. 
The purpose of this outing was to partake of a 
turtle weighing some three or four hundred 
pounds brought by an v^erican ship from our 
islands. The meat did not strike me as very 
pleasing, but then it was not well prepared." 
Savarin, while in New York, frequented "Little's 
Tavern, where turtle soup was to be had during 
the morning, and in the evening the refreshments 
usual in the United States." This would indi- 
cate a different division of the day gastronomi- 
cally from the one now in vogue. 

Captain Bossu was so pleased with the flavor of 
our wild ducks as to compare it favorably with 
that of some Rouen domestic ducks of which he 
had partaken on his way to America. He proved 
his right to discuss this toothsome subject by point- 
ing out that wild ducks were best during the season 
[io3] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

they fed on wild rice, and therefore he urged that 
swamps in France be planted therewith. 

The number of vegetables in common use was 
restricted — tomatoes were not considered healthy, 
and Chastellux says we grew artichokes, but did 
not eat them. Dupetit-Thouars, on the other 
hand, when complaining of the scarcity of bread, 
says that it is replaced by vegetables. Brissot 
makes the amusing statement that "the Ameri- 
cans of the Northern States do not like onions, 
and only cultivate them to sell to the Americans 
of the Southern States." Michaux (junior) wit- 
nessed a confirmation of this: "Charleston harbor 
is always full of small vessels from Boston, New- 
port, New Yorck and Philadelphia, loaded with 
potatoes, onions, carrots, beets, apples, oats, corn, 
and hay." In Brissot's description of Wethers- 
field, Connecticut, we read that it "is remark- 
able for its immense fields entirely filled with 
onions, of which they export a prodigious quan- 
tity to the West Indies." 

But seldom is any mention made of fruit ap- 
pearing upon the table, although we learn that 
nuts were well liked, no less a person than General 
Washington being extremely fond of them. "At 
dessert," says the Prince de Broglie, "he consumed 
an enormous quantity of nuts, sometimes for two 
hours, if the conversation continued to interest 
him." Savarin commented favorably upon this 
[io4] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

custom of eating nuts, and seemed to prefer 
"coco and ycory [Roux spells it ikery] nuts." He 
liked them after dinner with his wine, because of 
their thirst-producing qualities, also possessed by 
the "welch rabbets," with which he was wont to 
regale his two fellow emigres, Vicomte de la Massue 
and Jean Rodolphe Fehr, at Little's Tavern, in 
New York. He describes this dainty as "a bit of 
roasted cheese on a shce of bread. To be sure, 
this preparation is not so substantial as rabbit 
meat, but it stimulates thirst, makes the wine 
seem good, and is proper for dessert in a small 
company." 

Most of the Frenchmen went to America on war- 
ships, but those few who came on American vessels 
received an excellent first impression of our food, 
by reason of the fare served on board. We may 
remark in passing that it could not have been easy 
to victual ships when the westward trip generally 
took about seventy days. Says Brissot: "The 
American ships have, as a rule, good provisions in 
abundance. Their salt beef is almost as good as 
that of Ireland. We ate potatoes up to the very 
moment we arrived at Boston. That will doubtless 
surprise you because the general behef in France 
is that in the spring they sprout and become 
bad. Breakfast with tea, coffee, or chocolate; at 
dinner, meat, vegetables, wine, and beer, no coffee 
and rcirely any liqueur; tea at five or six o'clock; 
[io5] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

at supper, eggs and rice, — that was our way of 
living." 

So often do the French comment approvingly 
upon the general cleanliness of the American peo- 
ple, that we are not surprised to hear from Brissot 
that "kitchens are kept clean, and do not give out 
the disgusting smell to be found in the best kitchens 
of France. The dining rooms, which are generally 
on the ground floor, are also clean and well aired; 
cleanliness and fresh air is to be found every- 
where." It is distressing to find in Perrin du Lac 
that "they don't use napkins. They have forks 
with two prongs that are only used when carving. 
They eat with their knives, which have rounded 
ends" — all of which is more of a compliment to 
our ancestors' manual dexterity than to their man- 
ners. 

Smoking has become such a recognized ad- 
junct to meals that it is really quite surprising 
how few arc the allusions made by the French 
to the use of tobacco, especially when one reflects 
that they were visiting the land which provided 
Europe with its supply of that "fragrant weed." 
Bayard tells us that "almost all the men chew 
tobacco," while St. Mery's remark upon the sub- 
ject is the most complete of any: "All Ameri- 
cans are smokers, tliey also chew, and sometimes 
do both at once, but the American of any class 
who uses snuff" is a phenomenon, and their women 
[io6] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

do not deform and dirty their noses as do Euro- 
peans." Perrin du Lac found that it was the 
custom to smoke cigars in American theatres, 
and he concluded that, in the opinion of our an- 
cestors, "a Havana cigar, a newspaper and a 
bottle of madeira make up all the dehghts of 
life." 



[107] 



CHAPTER V 

AMERICAN PHYSICAL TRAITS AND 

TEMPERAMENT, AND THE EFFECT 

OF OUR CLIMATE 

It was difficult for General Rochambeau, 
commander-in-chief of the French forces, to 
understand how a bookseller hke Mr. Knox 
could promptly prove himself an able artillery offi- 
cer when given charge of that arm of the Amer- 
ican service, and also how the American troops, 
although entirely inexperienced in siege operations, 
should have so readily adapted themselves to work 
in the trenches before Yorktown ! This also puz- 
zled the Marquis de Chastellux as much as it 
had his chief. To both of them, carefully trained 
in accordance with the best European military 
system, it was inconceivable that any one lack- 
ing such professional training should, by reason 
of a certain natural equipment, achieve distinc- 
tion in the art of war. That natural trait has 
since come to be recognized as American adapta- 
bility, and it is credited to us as a great national 
asset. Crevecoeur realized, thanks to his long 
residence among us, that novel conditions were 
[io8] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

generating changes in our physical traits: "The 
American is a new man who goes upon new prin- 
ciples. Most of them, therefore, entertain new 
ideas and develop new opinions. From involun- 
tary idleness, penury, and useless labor he has 
passed to toil of a very different nature rewarded 
by ample returns. This is an American." And 
Talleyrand, the ablest of all the French who 
visited us, foresaw that we "will one day be a 
great people, the wisest and happiest on earth." 
General Victor Collot looked so far into the 
future as to feel that "America seems destined 
to play a leading role a few years hence in the 
pohtics of Europe." 

The ready adaptability of the American to any 
new condition that might arise, plus his quick- 
ness of mind, elicited numerous favorable com- 
ments from the French. Brissot is one of the 
many to speak of our inventive abihty, already 
beginning to show itself, but he was disposed to 
credit this gift to Mother Necessity, coupled with 
certain chmatic influences. Perhaps if he could 
to-day witness the amazing number of patent 
apphcations pouring into our Patent Oflfice, he 
would reahze that he had unwittingly remarked 
a strong racial trait which was to persist and de- 
velop long after it had outgrown the taskmaster 
necessity of those early colonial struggles. 

It was but natural that this quickness of mind 
[ 109] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

should sometimes strike a foreigner as productive 
of excessive curiosity, and a propos of this, Chastcl- 
lux is in his best vein when repeating a traveller's 
tale anent this tendency of our forefathers: "He 
says the Americans are the most inquisitive peo- 
ple he has ever seen. Their curiosity, according 
to him, is pushed almost to impropriety. Wlien 
he asked his way they only answered, *you ap- 
parently come from Philadelphia.' WTien dying 
of hunger and thirst he demanded food, instead 
of serving him, they said, 'you seem to be in a 
great hurry, is there anything new in the North ? ' 
He also relates that Mr. Franklin (who possessed 
a sense of humor in addition to that habitual calm 
wliich so surprised the Europeans) whenever he 
was traveUing in Connecticut, a section noted for 
its curiosity, was accustomed when he entered 
an inn to call all the family together and an- 
nounce in a loud tone, 'I am Benjamin Franklin, 
I was born in Boston, I am a printer by trade. I 
am coming from Philadelpliia and I am going 
back there at such-and-such time. I do not 
know anything new, and now, my friends, will 
you tell me what you can give me for supper.*^' " 
It seems almost a pity to attempt any rebuttal 
of so good a story, but it is only fair to our an- 
cestors to quote from General Moreau in their 
defense: "You arrive at a place, or change your 
domicile, or set out on a journey, but no one 
[no] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

bothers himself about you." And Hilliard d'Au- 
berteuil insists that "one never sees there, as in 
European cities, inquisitive idlers, hanging about 
public places on the lookout for news, or amus- 
ing themselves by staring at newly arrived 
strangers." On the other hand, Bonnet no- 
tices that "New Englanders are inquisitive, espe- 
cieilly to foreigners." 

Strangely enough, although references are con- 
stant to our climate and its effect in developing 
a distinct American type, very few differences are 
described between European climate and ours, 
except by Volney, who visited us in 1795 and 
devoted two whole volumes to "the chmate and 
soil of the United States." Fersen says of New- 
port that "the climate is superb," but then adds 
that the heat there in August reminds him of 
Italy. Perhaps the most striking of Volney's 
observations is as to "the amount of electric 
fluid with which the American atmosphere is im- 
pregnated to a greater proportion than that of 
Europe; there is no need of mechanical or arti- 
ficial apparatus to make this sensible — it is suffi- 
cient to draw a silk ribbon rapidly across some 
woollen stuff to have it contract far more quickly 
than I have ever seen it do in France." He finds 
the most salient difference between the climates 
of America and Europe is that "there is no 
spring in the United States, and one passes 
[III] 



FRENCH IMEMORIES OF 

abruptly from rigorous cold lo violent heat, ac- 
companied by the strange circumstances of a 
cold wind and a burning sun, a winter landscape 
and a summer sky." Pontgibaud is another of 
the few to notice the remarkable brevity of our 
spring, and also the delightful superiority enjoyed 
by our bright, clear autumns over the gloomy 
weeks which generally mark that season in 
Europe: "A peculiarity of the climate of this 
country is that often there is no spring, and 
owing to this absence of one of the pleasantest 
seasons of the year you pass straight from a 
long, hard winter to weather of insupportable 
heat which has followed, without any intermedi- 
ate gradations, a severe frost. The autumns, on 
the other hand, are long and very fine." The 
Marquise de la Tour du Pin, on their farm neair 
Albany, remarked that "it is interesting to re- 
cord how suddenly spring arrives in these lati- 
tudes. Early in March the northwest wind, 
after having been in complete control all winter, 
stopped abruptly. The southern breezes began 
to be felt, and the snow melted so rapidly that 
in two days the roads were transformed into tor- 
rents. In less than a week the fields turned 
green, and the woods were filled with innumer- 
able wild flowers unknown in Europe." 

And now for a surprise — the French thought 
us a phlegmatic people! "Coldness and reserve 

[112] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

seem to me to be characteristics of the American 
nation," says Deux-Ponts. " They appear to have 
Httle of that enthusiasm which one attributes to a 
people fighting for their hberties." Roux, who, 
visited America in 1784 concluded that "physical 
and moral causes will always prevent them from 
becoming conquerors, unless their population sud- 
denly increases through circumstances impossible 
now to foresee." Minister Fauchet and his feUow 
Commissioners, writing home April 19, 1795, re- 
port that "Americans are cold by nature, . . and 
don't care to take part in public demonstrations 
or in processions." "The calm tranquillity with 
which they argue their cases," says Perrin du 
Lac, "cannot fail to amuse a stranger. Even in 
the most important affairs you will never see the 
speaker move head or hands, nor will he by 
the shghtest inflection of his voice indicate that 
he is more aroused at one time than another." 
After upbraiding us for our "dull spirit and soul 
without energy," Beaujour adds: "But it is to 
be hoped that their temperament will improve 
with their climate, and that the American will 
one day acquire more vivacity of spirit, and more 
strength of character." Robin says that our 
"cHmate afforded but little energy," and it must 
have been disheartening to our forefathers to 
learn of his fear that our climate must hmit our 
future greatness. The antidote which he sug- 
[ii3] 




FRENCH MEMOIUES OF 

gests for the said climatic handicap would hardly 
suit temperance societies: "The indolent, pas- 
sive character of this people arouses the fear 
that they will not arrive at the world power 
which so many advantages promise them. But 
this character is due to customs, to chmate, and 
to food which some day will change. Unsub- 
stantial food and drinks but slightly alcoholic 
(and, therefore, dissolvent rather than digestive) 
must necessarily relax the fibres, give a slower, 
more uniform circulation to the blood, and there- 
fore cause a mentality less active, and an imag- 
ination less animated, a greater reserve and a 
cahner character. But when a numerous popu- 
lation shall have cut down these immense for- 
ests, the soil opened up to the sun with a freer 
and less rarefied air, new forms of agriculture and 
a greater commerce will increase the use of al- 
cohohc hquors and cause a closer communication 
between men now widely separated — all these will 
awake and excite the passions, and then the 
Americans will reveal all that of which they are 
capable." Strange theories these to be ad- 
vanced by a chaplain of Rochambeau's army ! 

So lazy were our forebears, according to Blan- 
chard, that "during the winter they go out but 
httle, and pass whole days together sitting in 
the chimney corner or beside their wives doing 
nothing, not even reading, so that, to escape 
[ii4] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

boredom, they have to partake of frequent meals." 
Roux complains that "they are only willing to 
work two or three days a week." "The Americans 
were, as a rule, lazy," says Fersen, and most of 
the French seem to agree with him and Blanchard, 
Hilliard d'Auberteuil being one of the very few to 
come to our defense: "Lazy men are extremely 
rare," says he, "they have not yet had time to ac- 
quire the habit of laziness." Although Volney as- 
serts that they "did not rise early in the morning," 
and were "naturally cold and phlegmatic, slow and 
taciturn," he admits that "once up, they spend 
the entire day in an uninterrupted round of use- 
ful occupations." Crevecoeur, who Hved longer 
among us than any of the others, and whose 
opinion has therefore a peculiar value, holds an 
entirely opposite view and believes that Euro- 
peans became "tuned up" after arrival here, 
nor is this the only point upon which he was 
nearer right than those of his countrymen who 
had but a few weeks or months in which to ob- 
serve us. 

Although our ancestors struck the Frenchmen as 
being phlegmatic, tliis astonishing observation will 
be partially explained if we remember who it is that 
is speaking, and reflect that we are hstening to 
comments from members of a Latin race upon an 
agglomeration of Anglo-Saxons, even the Uveliest 
of whom must seem oversteady to a Latin. Per- 
[ii5] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

haps the most Latin of all the comments is one 
from the pen of Bayard: "The phlegmatic inhabi- 
tants of the New World seem to lack that delicate 
organization which gives foresight. One must 
actually beat upon their nerves to make them vi- 
brate, whilst in France it is enough to touch them 
with the finger tip. But, on the other hand, they 
reproach us with the short duration of our emo- 
tions." 

It is difficult to understand how they could so 
constantly accuse us of sluggishness, especially 
as their conclusions seem so seldom justified by 
their premises. Take St. Mery, for an example 
— notice the conclusion with which he starts, and 
then his basis for it: "Man receives from this 
climate an effect which deprives him of a part of 
his energy, and which disposes him to indolence, 
but that does not prevent him from being quarrel- 
some, and the quarrel generally ends in a boxing 
match. Boxing has its laws and regulations. 
The two athletes choose the place of combat. 
They undress themselves so that nothing but 
their shirts remain on the upper part of their 
bodies, and roll their sleeves up above the el- 
bows. Then on an agreed signal, they rush at 
each other, deliver blows on the chest, head, 
face and stomach — blows the sound of which no 
one could imagine who had not attended such a 
spectacle. After each new shock they draw back 
[ii6] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

and separate. If one of them falls during one 
of these attacks his adversary does not touch 
him so long as he is on the ground, but the shght- 
est movement he makes to rise, the other has the 
right to hit him and to knock him down again. 
Nobody interferes to separate the champions; 
they make a ring around them, and encourage 
them, — each, the one in whom he takes especial 
interest. So long as one of them does not con- 
sider himself beaten, the other holds him down 
and smothers him with blows every time he tries 
to rise from the ground. As soon as this admis- 
sion of defeat is secured, the vanquished gets up, 
dresses himself, and is free to depart until the 
next challenge — if he has the temerity to accept 
one. At the end of the battle one of the boxers, 
and sometimes both, are covered with the blood 
which they expectorate, vomit, or else lose from 
the nose. Teeth are broken, eyes are shut by 
being puffed up, and sometimes the sight is de- 
stroyed." Bayard also tells of this same gentle 
pastime: "The athletes use fists, feet and teeth; 
they pluck out each other's eyes and this is how 
it is done; — the champions approach each other, 
dehvering without warning heavy blows of the fist; 
they entwine their forefingers in their enemy's 
hair, then, stiffening their thumbs, apply them 
to the corners of the eyes and make them pop 
out, amid cheers from a ferocious circle urging 
[117] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

them on. Woe to the careless wight who allows 
his finger or ihumb to get caught, for they will 
be bitten by his adversary. Every meirket day 
we saw crowds form round drunken athletes 
whom the code of honor forced to box. Fright- 
ened women fled from these barbarous pastimes 
learned from the English. Generally a bruiser 
(breaker of bones) is judge for the combatants 
and compels the observance of the rules. You 
see him marching gravely round the circle and 
addressing the two champions with an air of au- 
thority. It is he who gives the signal for combat 
or applause. The imbecile crowd has more re- 
spect for his orders than they would have for a 
magistrate. After the combat the friends of the 
winner surround him, and shake his hands, while 
others with lemons stop the blood which flows 
from his nostrils. This personage receives their 
attentions and praise with the studied solemnity 
of a theatrical hero." 

Needless to say, such acute observers did not 
fail to notice how difl'ering latitude makes for a 
difl'erence in temperament between the Ameri- 
cans of the Middle States and those to the north 
and south. This is how it struck Beaujour: 
"The men are strong and enterprising in the north, 
fickle and frivolous in the middle states, careless 
and lazy in the southern ones. A Bostonian 
would seek liis fortune in the bottom of hell, 
[ii8] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

but a Virginian would not go four steps for it; 
an inhabitant of New York, Philadelphia, and 
Baltimore does not die content if during his life- 
time he has not changed his occupation three or 
four times ! Customs brought from abroad still 
obtain throughout the northern and middle 
states. It is not until one crosses the Potomac 
that these customs, so clearly marked with the 
traces of colonial manners, appear to have ab- 
solutely changed. And whether this change 
comes about from the influence of climate or 
negro slavery, it is none the less noticeable in 
all the usages of life — their commerce is turned 
over to strangers, agriculture abandoned to 
slaves, and the proprietor, under the luxurious 
title of 'planter' concerns himself with his 
pleasures alone." ChasteUux also notices how 
marked was the difference between the various 
sections of the country: "If one wishes to ob- 
tain an idea of the American republic he must 
not confound the Virginians (whom a spirit as 
warlike as mercantile, as ambitious as speculative, 
brought to this continent) with the New Eng- 
landers, who owe their origin to religious enthu- 
siasm. One must not expect to find the same 
result in Pennsylvania, where the first colonists 
thought only of peopling and cultivating the 
wilderness, as in South Carolina, where the pro- 
duction of certain privileged articles turned pub- 
[119] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

lie attention to foreign trade, and established 
connections necessary therefor w ith the old world." 

Of the chmate of Pennsylvania, Brissot says 
that it is "less cold than in the northern stales, 
less warm and suffocating than in the middle 
states, and offers considerable additional attrac- 
tion." The Comte de Fersen, during his stay with 
the army at Newport, wrote home to his father, 
*'the chmate is superb." 

So great was the difference between the colonies 
that several of these foreign commentators pre- 
dicted a political disagreement between the people 
of the north and those of the south. Marnezia 
thought that if we did not break up into a northern 
and a southern republic we should end by even a 
greater division either into many small republics 
or else into eight separate monarchies. May his 
forecast never be nearer consummation than it 
has been up to the present day ! 

Great as was the difference between the sec- 
tions in those early days, far greater than to-day, 
it must not be forgotten that it in no wise af- 
fected the unanimity of the colonies in their re- 
volt against the mother country. We modern 
Americans, a united and homogeneous people, 
are apt to pass over this surprising fact of our 
early history. The hereditary Prince of Bruns- 
wick told Rochambeau just before the Revolu- 
tion broke out, that the colonists lacked the 
[ 120] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

cohesion necessary for a general revolt, and pre- 
dicted that it would take a whole century to 
overcome the local jealousies and intercolony 
animosities. But he was wrong — the amazingly 
unanimous loyalty to the cause of independence 
rang equally true in" all parts of the land; the 
patriotism seen at Bunker Hill was no greater 
than that displayed in the swamps of Georgia, 
or during the dreadful winter at Valley Forge. 
Such Toryism as existed seems to have been 
due to private interest among the aristocratic 
classes in the cities controlled by the English. 
Notwithstanding constant temptations to desert 
the cause of the struggling colonies, seemingly 
doomed to defeat, Benedict Arnold is alone in 
his infamy. It does one good to read Bocham- 
beau's account of the spirited refusal of British 
gold by the American sergeant at the head of 
the revolted Pennsylvania State troops march- 
ing to demand arrears of pay from Congress in 
Philadelphia. 

General Bochambeau observed that "the north- 
ern states enjoy about the same temperature 
as Paris, the middle states that of our southern 
provinces, while those of the south suffer all the 
burning heat of the coast of Barbary; from this 
it results that they enjoy long hfe in the northern 
states, shorter in the middle ones, while in the 
southern states at sixty years of age they are ab- 

[I2I] 



FRENXII MEMORIES OF 

solutely decrepit." Volney "also thought that life 
was shorter in the south than at the north, and 
Michaux (junior), while travelling in western 
Pennsylvania, saw "some old men over seventy- 
five years of age, which is rare in the Atlantic 
States south of Pennsylvania." This subject of 
American longevity was one of great interest to 
our visitors, and provoked among them a vigorous 
and somewhat amusing discussion, in which even 
the tombstones of our churchyards were forced 
(doubtless with reluctance) to testify against us. 
It was Robin, one of the earliest to arrive, who 
set this fashion of noting the ages on tombstones, 
and from these he deduced that we were an un- 
usually short-lived race. "I had assumed that 
life would be short, and therefore I examined the 
cemeteries of Boston. They are accustomed to 
carve on each gravestone the name and age, and 
I found there that the lives of most of the male 
deceased seldom reached fifty years, and I saw 
very few of sixty, almost none of seventy, and 
none at all above that." But Brissot, who al- 
ways delighted to correct somebody about some- 
thing, rallies to our defense with the aid of even 
more reliable statistics and gives us rather the 
better of the comparison in this regard over Euro- 
peans: "Abbe Robin says that after twenty-five 
the American women appear old, that young 
children die in greater proportion than in Europe, 

[ 122 ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

and that there are few old men. Nothing could 
be more untrue. I have carefully observed 
women between thirty and fifty years of age, 
and found most of them plump and of good 
health. I have seen some fifty years old who 
still had a very fresh appearance; one would not 
have given them more than forty. I have no- 
ticed this same good health manifested in women 
from sixty to seventy, and am speaking now espe- 
cially of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and 
Connecticut women. It is true that in Penn- 
sylvania one does not see the same bright hues 
on the interesting faces of the Quaker women 
and girls, for they £ire generally pale. I have 
remarked their teeth, — some very handsome ones; 
there is no rule to be laid down in this respect 
and American women have the same failing as 
EngHsh women, — they are too fond of hot drinks. 
Not only is the number of old men greater here 
than in Europe, as I am going to prove, but these 
old folk generally preserve their intellectual and 
often their physical faculties. I am reminded 
that at Ipswich, in Massachusetts, there is an 
old Minister who still preaches well although 
ninety years old. I am told of another of the 
same age who went twenty miles on foot every 
Sunday to attend meeting. Finally, there is Mr. 
Temple, one hundred years old, who died in New 
Hampsliire in 1765. He left eight children, four 

[123] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

girls and four boys, of the following ages, 86, 
85, 83, 79, 77, 75, 73." Something of Milliard 
d'Auberteuil's concerning the preservation of 
their faculties by our elderly men is so a propos 
that we will interrupt Brissot and interject it 
here: "They become adult at twenty and old at 
fifty, and they grow to be as taciturn, as our 
aged folk become loquacious. At bottom their 
character tends to gravity, and they generally, 
at that age, have less memory, much more will 
than thinking power, prudence than reasoning 
power, moderation than genius; but for those 
very reasons they are better qualified to guide 
peoples, and more difficult to subdue." Return- 
ing once more to Brissot, he sets out in further 
support of his contention a table of vital statis- 
tics of Harvard graduates and adds, "what you 
must conclude from all these facts and statistical 
tables (even if the calculations lack rigorous ex- 
actness), is that a man's life is much longer in 
the United States than in the healthiest country 
of Europe." St. Mery disagrees with Brissot 
and supports Robin, whose reliance upon grave- 
yard statistics he approves: "American women 
are charming and adorable at fifteen, faded at 
twenty-three, old at thirty-five, decrepit at forty 
or forty-five, and subject to nervous troubles. 
To judge from tombstones, Americans generally 
die between thirty-five and forty-five." Chas- 
[i-4] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

tellux would seem to side with St. Mery and 
Robin, for he says of a certain planter: "This 
Mr. Lambert is somewhat of a phenomenon in 
America, where longevity is not common. He is 
eighty-three years old and hardly seems fifty- 
five." But Mazzei, on the other hand, criticises 
Chastellux for alleging that longevity is infre- 
quent in America, and the Due de La Rochefou- 
cauld especially extols the great length of life 
frequent in Maine. Bonnet, too, specifically 
states that Americans are long-fived. Volney 
declares that we suffered from a tendency to 
catch cold, which he blames to "overheated 
apartments, balls, tea-parties, and feather beds 
(sometimes in the German style, i. e., feathers 
both above and below the body)." 

Let us leave them quarrelfing among them- 
selves as to how our cfimate affected us, and turn 
with a sigh of rehef to the peaceful unanimity 
which cheu'acterizes their recognition of its bene- 
ficial effect upon Europeans. Blanchard, quarter- 
master of the French troops, shall voice this 
general opinion, for he can speak with authority: 
"When the French army left at the end of 1782, 
Etfter two and a haff years spent in America, we 
did not have ten sick among five thousand men. 
This number, less than the proportion of soldiers 
ordinarily in hospital in France, shows how 
healthy is the cfimate of the United States." 

[125] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

Although the French could not agree upon 
whether or not we lived long lives, they were 
gracious enough to find us a fine-looking, well- 
set-up lot. The superior physique of our men, 
and how well they carried themselves, occasioned 
general comment, and to this chorus of approval 
there are but few dissenting voices. Beaujour 
expresses the opinion generally held by his com- 
patriots when he writes: "The Americans are 
almost all tall, with good figures, strong well- 
proportioned limbs, and a fresh, bright com- 
plexion, but in general they lack fineness of linea- 
ment, and have but httle expression in their 
faces. Although there are few ugly men to be 
found among them, there are even fewer truly 
handsome ones. I mean to say, of that wild and 
striking beauty sometimes seen in the south of 
Europe, and which served as a model for the 
most beautiful statues of the ancients." St. 
Mery agrees that our men were tall and well 
made, and Bonnet calls us "tall, of good figure, 
sturdy, and courageous." The Vicomte de No- 
ailles says of American troops that "all are sober 
and patient, five on corn bread, undergo priva- 
tions or delays without murmuring, are capable 
of fatigue and long marches, valuable quahties 
which make of them a veritably fight infantry. 
Besides they look well, and are most of them 
handsome." And Ilifiiard d'Auberteuil says: 
[126] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

"Although Americans of Enghsh stock are less 
robust than most European peoples (owing to 
the weakening effect of their moist climate), 
they are more fearless, less sensitive to wounds 
than Europeans, and more easily healed of them." 

From Pontgibaud we learn that these novel 
physical traits Ccuried with them a certain simple 
dignity: "Congress then consisted of thirteen 
members, one from each State of the Union, but 
men very different from us in their habits and 
ways. They took their seats in the Congress 
Hall as unostentatiously as we should enter a 
reading-room in Paris, and the wisdom of their 
magnanimous resolutions was often surpassed by 
the simphcity of their manners." Robin also 
noticed this dignified simplicity and credits it to 
our diet, but he says that our food is not suffi- 
ciently nourisliing, and objects to the insipidity 
of such of our drinks as tea and milk, and he 
thinks that we Uve shorter lives than other men 
on this account. 

Since this worthy chaplain in Rochambeau's 
army has introduced the subject of the fair sex, 
let us see how our ancestresses struck the French- 
men — we find a gratifying unanimity of approval, 
as was but to be expected from such gallant 
gentlemen. Nevertheless, they indulge in occa- 
sional criticisms as well as a few left-handed 
compliments. Although Abbe Robin is a priest, 
[ 127] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

one would think liiin a judge from the even- ' 
handed justice of his conclusions: "American 
women are tall and well-proportioned, their fea- 
tures are generally regular, and their skins very 
white, without color. They have less ease of 
manner than French women, but more dignity. 
The figures of the men are equally well-propor- 
tioned. They have Httle flesh, and their com- 
plexion is rather pale. They are less careless in 
their dress than the women and very clean. At 
twenty years the women have the freshness of 
youth but at thirty-five or forty they are wrinkled 
and decrepit." Although Perrin du Lac found 
our women almost as phlegmatic as our men, "I 
soon noticed that the very first note of a musical 
instrument sufficed to dissipate that apathy 
which seemed to afl'ect both sexes alike. The 
girls danced with a pleasure that showed itself 
in their faces. The more active and fatiguing 
the dance, the better they liked it. By nature 
pale though pretty, American girls for the most 
part lack that vivacity which is the soul of beauty. 
Rarely aroused during the course of their uniform 
lives, they are strikingly attractive only when 
electrified by pleasure or passion, at which times, 
they are, so to speak, quite unlike themselves." 

Baron Closen admired all American women, but 
found those of Philadelphia a little too serious, 
caused, he thinks, by the presence of Congress 
[128] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

in that city. One is moved to query if the good 
baron was not unduly extending the prerogatives 
of that august body. Because of St. Mery's 
long stay in Philadelphia, it was but natural that 
he should say: "American women are pretty and 
those of Philadelphia most so; no other city 
in the world shows such a proportion." While 
passing through Virginia he thought the women 
pretty, but was so ungallant as to allege that 
they had long feet and poor teeth. Bayard, we 
are glad to report, comes to the defense of the 
fair Southerners: "Virginia women are tall, well 
poised, and have much more expression in their 
faces than other American women. Although 
they seem better fitted for the fatigues of Diana 
than the games of Love, they obey the laws of 
that master of gods and men." Segur declared 
himself a partisan of the Boston dames: "Europe 
offers for our admiration no prettier or more 
elegant, better bred or more talented women than 
those of Boston." Beaujour declined to be drawn 
into these pairtisan discussions; his opinion of our 
ladies as a whole, though calmly expressed, is 
nevertheless flattering: "The women have more 
of that delicate beauty which is the right of their 
sex and in general more refinement and expres- 
sion in their faces. They are tall, and almost 
all have graceful figures, high bosoms, a beauti- 
ful head, and an amazing whiteness of complex- 
[ 129] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

ion. You may be sure that along with tliis 
brilUant exterior there goes the modest air and 
naive grace which nature lavishes without art, 
and thus you will get an idea of their style of 
beauty. But this beauty does not last long; at 
twenty-five their figures alter, and at thirty al- 
most all their charms are gone." We have al- 
ready seen that Brissot does not agree with the 
view that American women fade early, and he 
argues stoutly against that slanderous allegation. 
Chastellux gives a hint that stiffness was not a 
failing of some of our girls: "We were waited 
on at supper by a young lady of great beauty, 
named Miss Pearce. She was a neighbor of Mrs. 
D. who came to see her and to assist in the ab- 
sence of her younger sister. This young person 
was possessed, hke all American girls, of a very 
modest demeanour, indeed even a serious one. 
She was willing to have you look at her or praise 
her face and even give a few caresses, provided 
it was not done with an air of famiharity. In 
fact, bad manners are so unusual in America 
that these little liberties with young girls are of 
no consequence and the Hberty itself possesses 
an appearance of modesty which is not the case 
with our affected prudery and false reserve." 
Lafayette writes his wife from Charleston, June 
19, 1777, that "American women are very pretty, 
very simple, and of a charming cleanliness." 
[i3o] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

And now as to the home hfe of the early Ameri- 
cans — how, if at all, was it affected by these new 
conditions of chmate and environment? For- 
tunately for the purposes of our inquiries. General 
Rochambeau not only encouraged his officers to 
travel as widely as possible, but also gave them 
especial permission to lodge in private houses 
whenever the opportunity offered. Says the 
Comte de Segur: "This permission gave me the 
pleasure of observing more in detail the home 
life of American famihes. I was enchanted with 
the simphcity, the purity of manners, and the 
frank cordiality of my hosts. Their poHteness, 
though unstudied, was but the more amiable 
for that reason; they had good breeding and 
pleasant manners; everybody was natural. It 
seemed as if all their duties were pleasures for 
them. The spirit among them is that of good 
sense; reason and goodness dictate their words 
and preside over their conduct, and it must be 
agreed that truth and happiness, far from being 
totally exiled from the earth as gloomy phi- 
losophers have said, are to be found everywhere 
in America." When passing through Dover on 
his way to Philadelphia he remarks that the 
neatness of the place proved the order, activity, 
and intelligence of its people: "Accustomed to 
the spectacle of our [French] magnificent cities, 
to the affectations of our young men of fashion, 
[ i3i ] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

and to the contrast between the luxury of our 
upper classes with the shabby attire of our peas- 
ants and the rags of our poor," he was surprised 
when he arrived in the United States to see no- 
where such luxury nor such misery. "All the 
Americans we met wore well-cut clothes, of good 
stuff, and had good shoes. Their bearing was 
free, frank, and cordial, removed ahke from 
roughness and studied politeness, and showed 
them men of independence, but law-abiding, in- 
sisting upon their own rights while respecting 
those of others. Their appearance told you 
that you were in the land of reason, order, and 
Hberty. I saw with admiration well-peopled 
towns, cities where everything evidenced an ad- 
vanced civilization — schools, churches, and uni- 
versities; nowhere indigence nor rudeness, but 
everywhere fertihty, ease of circumstance, and 
urbanity. In every individual you met there 
was to be seen the tranquil pride of the inde- 
pendent man who, subject only to his laws, 
knows neither the vanity, the prejudices, nor the 
forms of our European society; such is the pic- 
ture which, during all my travels, surprised and 
fixed my attention." In this connection let us 
turn to Lafayette, sure of a word of kindly ap- 
preciation, and read a portion of one of his letters 
to his young wife: "I am now going to talk to 
you about the country and its inhabitants. They 

[l32] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

are fully as amiable as my enthusiasm painted 
them. Simplicity of manners, the desire to 
oblige, the love of country as well as of liberty, 
and a charming equahty everywhere prevails. 
The richest and the poorest are on a level, and 
although there are immense fortunes in this 
country, I defy anyone to find the shghtest dif- 
ference in the manners of one toward the other. 
Everything recalls English customs, except that 
there is more simplicity in the homes than in 
England I am enchanted to find that here all 
citizens are brothers. They are comfortably off 
and each has the same rights as the most power- 
ful landed proprietor." 

Some unknown philosopher has said: "Be 
virtuous and you will be happy, but you won't 
have a good time." Felix de Beaujour might 
have been that aforesaid unknown pessimist to 
judge from the following: "Americans in their 
domestic fife possess more of the elements of 
happiness than Europeans, but in their social 
fife they have less of them and, though it is true 
that they are free from vexations, they live almost 
without pleasures. They know nothing of the 
art of multiplying and diversifying their amuse- 
ments and the monotony of their Hfe resembles 
the silence of the tomb." Perhaps the easiest 
way to explain why the French thought our 
ancestors' fives lacked amusement is that, from 
[i33] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

the Latin point of view, all Anglo-Saxons, Ameri- 
can as well as British, take their pleasures sadly. 
But who shall say if the simple delights of the 
early American home were not as well worth while 
as anytliing the gay court of Louis XVI could 
afford, even long before the shadow of Doctor 
Guillotin's dreadful invention fell athwart it. 



[ i3'i 1 



CHAPTER VI 

CITY LIFE, AND ESPECIALLY IN 

PHILADELPHIA, CHARLESTON, 

AND BOSTON 

On the day "the embattled farmers" began 
the immortal fusiUade at Lexington, the new 
Yale Stadium, seating 67,000 people, could have 
accommodated the combined population of Phila- 
delphia, Boston, and New York, which were 
then respectively 20,000, 25,000, and 20,000 ac- 
cording to Robin, Pontgibaud, and Mandrillon. 
To perform the same service for those three cities 
now would necessitate a coliseum seating about 
9,000,000, a project which only the Grand Canon 
of the Colorado would be able to entertain. 
Telescopes would be needed instead of opera- 
glasses, and the spectacle staged for such an 
audience would have to be on the scale of Euro- 
pean army manoeuvres. We must not forget 
that in those early days, according to Bonnet, 
Bayard, and Brissot, only one-tenth of our popu- 
lation dwelt in cities instead of the 47 per cent 
of to-day. Nor did the small urban population 
of these days tend to increase rapidly. Even in 
[i35] 



FRENCH IMEMORIES OF 

1790, when our first official census was taken, 
the figures for the five leaders had only reached 
the following totals: New York, 33,131; Phila- 
delphia, 28,52^2; Boston, 18,320; Charleston, 
16,359; Baltimore, 13,503. 

How greatly the Revolution increased the im- 
portance of some cities while at the same time 
diminishing that of others is fairly startling, as 
we shall come to know when we read of them in 
detail, and learn how much New York, Providence, 
and Boston were injured, and how greatly Balti- 
more, Newport, and Philadelphia were helped. 
In few cases was the change so abrupt as that in 
the increase of Providence and the decfine of 
Newport, both taking place at the same time. 
Some cities made their gains more slowly than 
others; for example, Brissot notes that just after 
the war the increase of building in Philadelphia 
was less striking than that taking place in New 
York. How rapidly the order of our leading 
cities was changing appears from comparing the 
1790 figures with those given in 1810 by Beau- 
jour: Philadelphia, 120,000; New York, 90,000; 
Baltimore, 40,000; Boston, 36,000; Charleston, 
30,000; New Orleans, 20,000; Washington, 6,000. 
In passing it is interesting to note that many of 
the French bear witness that the rural districts 
back from the seacoast were actually benefited 
by the war, because of their immunity from 
[i36] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

ravages by the British navy, to which the sea- 
coast was constantly exposed. CoUeville, speak- 
ing of the number of vessels in all the harbors 
from the Potomac to Boston, says: "What must 
not have been their commerce before the trouble. 
I saw with equal surprise the flourishing condi- 
tion of the interior of the country." 

The French were unanimous in their high praise 
of American cities and seemed especially struck 
by three features unusual in Europe, viz., their 
advantageous location, their straight, finely built 
streets, and the fact that they possessed sidewalks. 
This last trait was especially novel to those ac- 
customed to the risks from horses and vehicles 
constantly run by foot-passengers in the then 
filthy, crowded, and crooked streets of Paris. 
In this preference of the French for our cities 
over those of Europe, Robin joins heartily, for, 
after reciting the unpleasant sights of dirty 
European capitals, he says: "All those of America 
rise proudly on smiling, healthy sites, bathed 
with pure water, surrounded by fertile fields, 
crossed by broad, straight streets, ornamented 
with clean, comfortable, and regular buildings." 

That the Americans should consider the com- 
fort and cleanliness of foot-passengers by provid- 
ing sidewalks for them fills Beaujour with some- 
thing akin to awe. "Most of the cities are 
adorned with sidewalks for the convenience of 
[137] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

foot passengers and are all carefully swept and 
watered during the great heat." "And they even 
have sidewalks on both sides of the street," writes 
Bonnet, "and moreover their houses are marked 
with numbers." "Even though the streets of 
Charleston were not paved, they were provided 
with brick sidewalks," says Michaux the younger. 
Mandrillon becomes enthusiastic while praising 
the progress of order and decency in our com- 
munities as compared with those of Europe: 
"Each city has commissioners for churches and 
for schools, pilot-officers for ports, police to clean 
and keep up the streets, commissioners and in- 
spectors for tobacco and other taxes, judges, 
night-watchmen, etc., in a word, there reigns so 
much of order, decency, security, and tranquil- 
ity in Boston, Philadelphia, Savannah, Charles- 
ton, St. Augustine, that no one who visits them 
but would prefer to dwell in those towns rather 
than in the best situated ones of the Old World." 
The effect produced upon the approaching trav- 
eller by certain of our cities is recorded by Beau- 
jour: "Boston, New York, and Baltimore, which 
seem to rise from the bosom of the waters, slop- 
ing gradually up over uneven ground, offer an 
agreeable prospect from a distance." We shall 
also fmd similar comments upon the fine site 
enjoyed by Albany and by certain other towns. 
Although theatres at that time played an ini- 
[i38] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

portant part in the social life of Paris, the French- 
men have httle or notliing to say of theatres in 
America. The most comprehensive comment is 
one from Perrin du Lac: "This theatre is large, 
well-built, and agreeably decorated within; but 
comedy is here still in its infancy, as indeed are 
all the fine arts. The plays are all Enghsh ones 
— America has not as yet produced any. Al- 
though some of the actors have been to London 
to develop their talent they have been unable to 
throw off the phlegmatic — the even character 
from which they almost never escape. Ameri- 
cans prefer tragedy to comedy, and in the latter 
seem to take no real pleasure except when it 
portrays the opposite of their own characters — 
extreme hghtness or excessive stupidity or ridic- 
ulous vulgarity. The noise of people coming 
and going disturbs the spectators, and in spite of 
notices to the contrary, one often suffers from 
the continual smoking of cigars. The men keep 
on their hats and remain seated, but rarely being 
gallant enough to offer their seats to ladies." 
Bayard also speaks of a theatre, and yet what he 
saw could hardly have been more primitive: 
"Bath has two pubhc edifices, a comedy theatre, 
and the bathing pavilion. The first of these is a 
log-house, whose interior accords with the sim- 
plicity of its external architecture. We had for 
our entertcdnment a wandering troupe of Irish 
[i39] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

comedians who had left their country to come here 
in search of audiences less difficult to amuse than 
are the inhabitants of the cities, towns, and 
villages of Ireland; the reason for their emigra- 
tion gives a fair idea of these poor devils' ability. 
They were in turn emperors, peasants, or fools, 
and besides were dying of hunger. Assistance 
was given them in spite of the severe remon- 
strances of the Methodists, who claimed that an 
art so diabolical as the drama should not be 
encouraged by Christians. The pleasure excited 
by the talent of these actors was poisoned by the 
piracies of English playwrights, whose rapacious 
hands had mutilated the masterpieces of Moliere. 
I explained these larcenies to the visitors here at 
the springs who thought all the plays were of 
English origin. Recapitulating the different 
kinds of recreation wliich one enjoyed at Bath, 
I will say then that tragedy, comedy, opera 
comique, and farce were played for us, that we 
danced every week, and that tea-parties were 
very frequent." St. Mery contributes but little 
to our store of information on this subject, al- 
though he reports that at Norfolk, Virginia, a 
town of five hundred houses and 3,000 people, 
there was a theatre built of brick, where seats 
were sold at one dollar or seventy-five cents each. 
In his article on Philadelphia, dated August 22, .| 

1798, he describes a theatre and says that women 
[i4o] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

go in the parterre as well as men, "but not women 
of distinguished appearance. Women also go in 
the upper gallery and negroes are not admitted 
elsewhere." He goes on to say that plays in 
the Enghsh style are "very coarse and their humor 
is repulsive to French tastes." He also tells of 
two circuses in Philadelphia. We learn from 
Robin that there was a theatre at Annapolis, but 
he does not favor us with anything beyond this 
bare statement. Beaujour says: " Their national 
dramas, hke Bunker Hill and Major Andre, do 
not give one a high idea of their theatre." 

Another interesting feature of city life into 
which unfortunately they also give us but few 
glimpses is that of clubs. Chastellux speaks of 
one in Boston: "This assembly was held every 
Tuesday in rotation at the houses of the differ- 
ent members who composed it. On the day in 
question it was at Mr. Russel's, a worthy mer- 
chant who entertained us admirably. The rules 
of this club are not burdensome — they only hmit 
the number of courses served at supper, but two 
of meat being allowed, for supper is not the im- 
portant meal of the Americans. Vegetables, 
pyes and especially good wine are not spared. 
They assemble after teatime, play, converse, 
read the pubhc papers, and sit down to table 
between nine and ten. The supper was as in- 
formal as if no strangers had been present. Songs 

[i4i] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

were sung at table and a certain Mr. Steward 
sang some pretty good ones and that too with 
rather a fine voice." This was not the only 
club in Boston, as we learn from Brissot, who 
also recounts a visit paid to the one just de- 
scribed — "there are several clubs in Boston. 
Monsieur Chastellux speaks of a private club 
which was held once a week, to which he was 
invited. I also have been there several times 
and have always been intensely pleased with the 
cordiality of its members to strangers, and the 
information which they display in their conver- 
sation. This club consists of only sixteen mem- 
bers. To join, one must be unanimously elected. 
Each member can bring one stranger with him. 
The meetings are held in turn at the members' 
houses. These clubs no longer hold their meet- 
ings in taverns, which is a good thing, — one 
drinks less and spends less. Madeira is worth 
four Boston shillings a bottle at the merchants' 
— at the tavern it costs six." Chastellux also 
makes brief mention of a club which he happened 
upon at Salem: "Stopped at Good-hue's inn. 
There was held in this inn a sort of merchants' 
club. Two or three of its members came to see 
me." Although hardly a club, Bayard tells of 
an edifice which served as a centre for social 
gatherings: "At Frederick-town almost all the 
houses are of brick, but the only public building 

[l42] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

worthy of notice is the Common House. The 
children go there to enjoy the innocent pleasm^es 
of youth. This building is square in form; it 
has a small dome, and a peristyle supported by 
Tuscan columns." 

Let us set out with our French friends on a 
"grand tour" of our cities, but, as already re- 
marked, we must be prepared for strange differ- 
ences between their order of importance then and 
now. New York, instead of coming first, must 
be postponed till toward the close of our itinerary 
because its occupation by the English during the 
Revolution prevented its being so well known to 
the Frenchmen as our other towns. Washington 
must come last of all because, before 1792, almost 
at the end of the period we are studying, it either 
did not exist at all, or else only in the brain of 
L'Enfant, the French engineer, who drew its 
ground plan. We must begin with Philadelphia 
not only because of its relative importance in 
size, but also because it was so long the seat 
of the Federal Government. Next shall come 
Charleston, the great city of the South, due in 
a measure to its being a convenient port of ar- 
rival for westward-bound ships sailing by way 
of the Azores to avoid the Gulf Stream and 
the easterly trade-winds of the North Atlantic. 
Then we shall go north to Boston, the metrop- 
olis of New England, and from thence progress 
[iA3] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

gradually south and west through Newport, Provi- 
dence, and Hartford to New Haven. Next shall 
come the interesting Dutch city (for so it seemed 
to the French) of Albany, and after it we shall 
see Baltimore, then known for its surprisingly 
rapid growth. Finally, we shall visit New York 
and Wasliington. 

And now for Philadelphia, the capital city of 
the young republic, and what a splendid first 
impression we shall have as we march in with 
the French army on its way south to strike 
the death-blow to English hopes at Yorktown ! 
Every street is gaily decorated, the City Fathers 
come out to meet us, the air rings with welcome 
to the gallant friends from across the sea. The 
eager hope of a glorious triumph soon to come is 
felt and seen on every side. "Count Rocham- 
beau's army," says Mandrillon, "halted half a 
mile outside the city, and the soldiers, seizing the 
opportunity to spruce themselves up, in a twink- 
ling of an eye appeared as neat as for a review 
in barracks. This was a day of triumph for the 
soldiers as well as for the spectators. The 
streets of Philadelphia overflowed with people, 
and the fair sex were all attired in their most 
beautiful finery. The French troops marched all 
the way through the city, preceded by martial 
music, which added to the briUiancy of the pa- 
rade. There was no end to the admiration ex- 
[i44] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

pressed for the neatness of the soldiers, as well as 
for the proper pride of their bearing, whilst they, 
noticing the generous applause, naturally appro- 
priated part of it to themselves. After pass- 
ing in review before Congress and the French 
Minister, the troops went into camp on a large 
plain by the Schulkill," "Congress was in ses- 
sion as we marched through the city," says Deux- 
Ponts, "we paid it the honors which the King 
had ordered us to pay it. The Thirteen Mem- 
bers took off their tliirteen hats at each salute of 
the flags and of the officers." "And in the eve- 
ning while we are enjoying the banquet of 80 
covers given by the French Minister, Chevaher 
de la Luzerne, there is announced [says Blan- 
chard] the splendid news that Admiral de Grasse 
has reached Chesapeake Bay with 28 ships and 
3,000 men. Outside the residence of the popular 
diplomat the streets are crowded with people 
shouting for joy." 

"Next day [says Mandrillon] the Soisson Regi- 
ment went through firing exercise. The scene was 
embelHshed by 20,000 persons and many elegant 
equipages. The picturesque beauty of the locality, 
the serenity of the day, and the glitter of arms all 
conspired to make it a brilliant spectacle." 

It is no wonder that after so hearty a greeting 
many of the French were disposed to record friendly 
pictures of hfe in that fine old town, nor were any 
[i45] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

Europeans better equipped than they to appreciate 
the comfort and rethienient of the hfe there en- 
joyed. Bayard connnonts with a note of surprise 
upon tlie social attainments of certain of their 
ladies, saying they would have been considered 
remarkable even at the witty and brilliant French 
court. ChastelliLx frequently expresses liis satis- 
faction with Philadelphia society, congenial to 
even so accomplished a courtier as he. Side by 
side with this gayer life of the capital were to be 
found the Quakers, the backbone of the colony. 
This contrast of two types of American citizen- 
ship aroused no jarring note. So far from blaming 
the Quakers for the gravity of demeanor preva- 
lent in Philadelphia, Baron Closen alleges that 
the seriousness of Philadelphia w^omen is due to 
Congress holding its sessions there. The effect 
of Congress upon polite society must have changed, 
because no such indictment, so far as the author 
knows, is nowadays brought against the women 
of Washington. Beaujour, on the other hand, 
shifts the blame back from Congress on to the 
Quakers: "All the streets look alike and so do 
all the houses; nothing could be gloomier than 
this uniformity unless it be the sadness of the 
inhabitants, most of whom are Quakers or Puri- 
tans." Chateaubriand, too, found the city "cold 
and monotonous," and disliked the dead level of 
the housetops unbroken bv those "towers which 
[ i46'] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

crown European cities." Those who even to-day 
would reproach Philadelphia for its "sabbath 
calm" should be reminded that the Due de 
Lauzun found it so noisy that he was obliged to 
take refuge at Newport. 

The general neatness of the city particularly 
pleased Perrin du Lac: "The cleanliness of the 
house fronts adds to their beauty. Saturdays are 
regularly devoted to washing them down from top 
to bottom, and the doorsteps and side walls are 
sponged off as carefully as the interiors of the 
dwellings." Although Segur has many flattering 
things to say of the cleanliness of the city, the 
simple elegance of its houses, and the easy circum- 
stances of its population, he regrets that there are 
no promenades or public gardens, and so does de 
Broglie. Chastellux also complains of this same 
defect: "It is so lacking in all which serves to 
make life pleasant that there is not even a single 
public promenade." Perhaps we shall not feel so 
distressed in this regard as were Segur and Chas- 
tellux after we have read in St. Mery that "all 
American women are pretty, but those of Phila- 
delphia most so; thousands of them between four- 
teen and eighteen years old are to be found on a 
winter's day on the north side of Market Street 
from three to five. At least four hundred of those 
young persons are pretty enough to be followed 
about if they took a walk in Paris." Although 
li47] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

Talleyrand arrived in Philadelpliia full of disgust 
for Ihe novelties which generally interest trav- 
ellers, he was very much taken with this city, 
and admires its harbor crowded with vessels, the 
wide, tree-bordered avenues, well-built brick 
houses, often with white marble fronts, the 
"monumental exchange," the luxurious shops, 
"as well stocked as those of Paris or London," 
but he agrees with La Rochefoucauld that living 
there is too high. It was in tliis town that on 
May 16, 1794, Talleyrand signed for its mayor, 
Matthew Clarkson, the required oath of fidelity 
to the governments both of Pennsylvania and 
the United States, promising never to "commit 
any act prejudicial to their liberty and inde- 
pendence," a heavy draft on the future by a 
man destined to be Minister of Foreign Affairs 
for Napoleon Bonaparte. 

Most of the Frenchmen spent so much time in 
Philadelphia, and made so many comments upon 
its life that we have ample material from which to 
prepare a synopsis of their conclusions. The prob- 
lem is not to find enough quotable passages, but to 
select those sufficiently brief for our purpose. Let 
us turn to Brissot : " Philadelphia may be regarded 
as the metropolis of the United States; it is cer- 
tainly the handsomest and the best built city. It 
has more wealth, although less luxury. There are 
to be found there more educated men, more with 
[i48] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AlVIERICA 

political and literary knowledge, and more polit- 
ical and learned societies. There are many other 
cities in America of greater age; although of 
more recent date Philadelphia has not delayed to 
surpass its older brothers," He gives as reasons 
for the prosperity of Philadelphia its location on 
a navigable river, the country behind it, and also 
the cHmate — "less cold than in the northern 
states, less warm and suffocating than that of the 
southern states, offers still further considerable 
attraction. But I firmly beUeve it is not only 
to these physical advantages that Pennsylvania 
owes its prosperity, — it is to the private manners 
of its inhabitants and to the universal tolerance 
which has been known and practised there since 
its beginning." Mandrillon, de Broglie, du Bourg, 
and Chastellux comment on the sidewalks every- 
where provided for the comfort of foot-passen- 
gers, "hke London," says the latter. At the 
same time that Brissot tells us that there were 
no cafes in Philadelpliia, he gives us a peep be- 
neath the surface when he says that Philadelphia 
is hke Europe in its loose Hving. 

Much has already been learned of Philadelphia 
life from the chapter on Society, because it was in 
that city and in Boston that the foreigners seemed 
chiefly to have pursued their studies in that con- 
genial field. So important was Philadelphia at 
that time, not only to the entire confederation of 
[i49] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

the colonies, but especially to Pennsylvania, that 
it absorbed almost all the urban population any- 
where about. Even Pittsburg, now so famous 
both at home and abroad tlirough its steel trade, 
is dismissed by Brissot with "it is a pity that 
Pittsburg is not larger and more populated." 
Those defects would seem to have been rectified. 
Even as late as 1796 General Collot found only 
one hundred and fifty houses in Pittsburg. He 
thought it strange that although the Pittsburgers 
dwelt in the midst of forests they preferred to 
burn coal, and he noted that it was cheaper to 
send coal to Baltimore than to Pliiladelphia : 
"And yet twice as many waggons come here from 
Pliiladelphia as from Baltimore." 

Charleston, South Carolina, will be our next 
point, for it would be lacking in respect to our 
beloved Lafayette did we not promptly acknowl- 
edge the importance then enjoyed by that city 
which gave him his first impressions of the land 
he was so greatly to befriend. Let us see what 
effect was produced upon him by the courteous 
and luxurious folk of that metropolis of the South : 
"The city of Charleston is one of the prettiest, 
best built, and most agreeably peopled that I 
have ever seen." He praises the women, the 
fraternal feelings of the men, the lack of poor 
people, and even the inn at which he stopped. 
He complains, however, of sitting five hours at a 
[i5o] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

banquet given in his honor. "This charming city 
is worthy of its inhabitants and everything there 
announces ease of circumstance and refinement." 
The day after his arrival was jQne. The novelty 
of everything around him, his room, the bed with 
its mosquito-netting, the black servants who 
came to serve him, the beauty and the foreign 
appearance of the country, covered with rich 
vegetation which he saw from the windows, all 
conspired to produce upon Lafayette a magical 
effect, and to excite in him inexpressible sensa- 
tions: "All the people with whom I had wished 
to make acquaintance here have overwhelmed 
me with pohteness and attentions, nor is it the 
politeness of Europe. I have only praise for the 
reception which I have had here." Of the charm 
and wealth of Charleston at that time, Crevecceur 
is, perhaps, the best historian: "An European 
upon his arrival must be greatly surprised when 
he sees the elegance of their houses, their sumptu- 
ous furniture as well as the magnificence of their 
tables — can he believe himself in a country whose 
estabhshment is so recent! The inhabitants are 
the gayest in America; it is known as the centre 
of our beau monde, and is always filled with the 
richest planters of the province who resort hither in 
quest of health and pleasure. The round of gaiety 
and the expenditures upon these citizens' tables 
are much superior to what you would imagine; 
[i5i] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

indeed, the growth of this town and province has 
been astonishingly rapid. It is a pity that the 
narrowness of the neck on which it stands pre- 
vents it from expanding, which is the reason why 
houses are so dear. Charlestown is in the North 
what Lima is in the South; both are capitals of 
the richest provinces of their respective hemi- 
spheres. You may, therefore, conjecture that 
both cities exhibit the aspect necessarily produced 
by w^ealth. Carolina produces commodities more 
valuable perhaps than gold, because they are 
gained by greater industry; it shows also on our 
northern stage a display of riches and luxury in- 
ferior indeed to Lima, but far superior to that 
seen in our northern towns." Due de La Roche- 
foucauld remarks with surprise that all Charles- 
ton men over fifty have white hair. Let us hope 
this phenomenon did not result from the gay hfe 
charged against them by Crevecoeur. Mandril- 
Ion was as optimistic as to its future, as he was 
pleased with its present: "It is Charles-town, the 
capital of the colony, which is really the impor- 
tant market, and which will necessarily be more 
and more so. It has straight streets, most of 
them wide, two thousand comfortable houses, and 
some public buildings which would pass for hand- 
some even in Europe." 

Boston, called by Bourgeois "the best-built 
city of the New World," enjoyed as great im- 

[l52] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

portance in the North as Charleston in the South. 
It is easy to gather from the pages of Segur why 
the French were so fond of the capital of Massa- 
chusetts: "Boston, which has now for a long 
time flourished because of its conomerce, appears 
hke the ancestor of the other American cities, and 
at the time that I was there was exactly like some 
old and large city in England. Democracy has 
in no wise banished luxury from it. In no part 
of the United States does one see such ease of 
circumstances, or more agreeable society. Europe 
offers for our admiration no prettier or more 
elegant, better bred or more talented women than 
those of Boston, like Mrs. Jarvis, Smith, Tudor, 
Morton." Prince de Broglie also gives a list of 
the Boston ladies who especially met with his 
approval, including Mrs. Jervis (with a jealous 
husband!), Mrs. Smith whose house was one of 
the most agreeable in town, Mrs. Tudor the most 
greatly admired of all, Mrs. Temple, Mrs. Morton, 
Mrs. de Aloys, and Miss Polly Seiff, all of them 
"very pretty!" As a proof of the luxury dis- 
played in this city possessing "a large number 
of weU-to-do folk, and a few very rich merchants," 
he cites their fine wines, napkins on the table, 
everybody drinking out of a glass of his own, and 
most surprising of all — ^your plate changed when- 
ever you wished ! The Boston women, says he, 
"are carefully dressed, but without taste, and do 
[i53] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

not understand how to arrange their hair. Some 
have a knowledge of music and play several in- 
struments agreeably; they sing rather monoto- 
nously — a mixture of English and Italian methods 
which is very sweet when the voice is a pretty 
one." Mandrillon finds the city quite hke Lon- 
don: "There is no town in America which is so 
advantageously situated for commerce as Boston. 
It had, before the troubles, thirty-five or forty 
thousand inhabitants of different sects. The ac- 
commodation, the furniture, clothing, food, con- 
versation, manners, and customs resemble so 
strongly those of London that it was difficult to 
find there anything different to that which al- 
ways attracts an excessive population of great 
capitals." Beaujour agrees that "their public 
buildings either surpass or at least equal the 
magnificence of those in Europe." The frank 
Blanchard comments that "there are also some 
poor quarters which give Boston a less modern 
appearance than Philadelphia and other Ameri- 
can cities." Deux-Ponts especially liked Boston, 
"which in no wise resembles the other American 
cities whose plans were prepared with foresight." 
Abbe Robin has much to say of this metropolis 
of New England. It is from him we learn that 
there "the rich cover their floors with woollen 
or woven carpets, the others with fine sand." 
Cromot du Bourg also goes into some interesting 
[i54] 











& .2 

O r 



c a 
Q s 



o 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

details: "The city of Boston is built as are most 
English cities, — very small houses of brick or 
wood, extremely clean inside. The inhabitants 
live absolutely in English fasliion. They appear 
a worthy folk, and affable. I have been very 
well received during the few visits I made. They 
take a great deal of tea in the morning. Dinner, 
which is generally at two o'clock, is composed of 
a great quantity of meat. They eat very httle 
bread. About five o'clock they take more tea, 
some wine, madeira, punch, and this ceremony 
lasts until ten o'clock. Then they sit down at 
table and have a supper wliich is less consider- 
able than dinner. At each meal they take off 
the cloth for dessert and bring on fruit. Most of 
their time is devoted to the table. . . . During 
the morning of May 7th, I saw as much of the 
town as was possible. It is very large and still 
shows that before the War it must have been a 
delightful place to stay. It is in the prettiest 
position possible, and has a superb port." "One 
would think himself in a fine European city," 
says Bourgeois; "the cafes, newspapers, prome- 
nades, carriages, — the continuous arriving of an 
infinite number of vessels from all parts of the 
world, aU proclaim this to be an important cap- 
ital and the distributing point of a widely differ- 
entiated commerce." 
Brissot pitches his remarks upon Boston in so 
[i55] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

lofty a key that one would think he was about 
to deUver an address upon its historic Common: 
"How I loved to wander in that long street whose 
simple wooden houses border the magnificent 
canal of Boston, in the midst of those shops which 
offered me all the products of the continent which 
I had quitted. How I enjoyed the activity of 
the merchants, the artisans, and the sailors ! It 
was not at all that uncomfortable and noisy bustle 
of Paris, not at all that uneasy, busy, eager-for- 
enjoyment air which characterizes my compa- 
triots, not at all the profoundly bored demeanor 
of the Enghsh — it was the simple, honest bearing, 
full of dignity, of men who reahzed their liberty, 
who saw only brothers and equals in all men. 
Everything in that street bore the character of 
a city still in its cradle, but wliich even in its 
cradle enjoyed great prosperity. Boston is hardly 
reborn from the horrors of war, and yet its com- 
merce is flourishing; it has not yet lived out a 
century, and yet within its boundaries it contains 
the arts, manufactures, products, sciences, and a 
crowd of curious and interesting sights." He de- 
scribes certain local customs of Boston and says 
that there Presbyterianism has moderated its 
fierceness. 



[i56] 



CHAPTER VII 

CITY LIFE (Continued) 

Newport, Providence, Hartford, New Haven, 

Albany, Baltimore, New York, New 

Orleans, and Washington 

The word Newport has to-day a certain eso- 
teric meaning, and as a summer home of "poHte 
society " is altogether unique. Indeed, it seems but 
natural that this should have been the place for 
the French to land and spend their first winter, 
and that the officers, many of them fresh from the 
court of Louis XVI, should have enjoyed their 
stay there. But what strikes us as most un- 
natural is their account of the bhght that fell 
upon Newport soon after the Revolution. Of 
the halcyon days when that city played host to 
the French army, Segur gives us one of his many 
pleasant pictures: "It was easy for us when we 
saw Newport to imagine the regrets of the French 
army upon leaving this charming city where they 
made so long a stay. Other parts of America 
were as yet pretty only in anticipation, but the 
prosperity of Rhode Island was already complete 
— ^industry, agriculture, the activity of commerce 
[157] 



FRENXH MEMORIES OF 

left nothing to be desired. The city of Newport, 
well built, with straight streets, contained a 
numerous population whose easy circumstances 
proclaimed their happiness. Charming meetings 
took place there between enlightened men of dis- 
tinction and pretty women whose talents embel- 
lished their charms. The names and the graces 
of Miss Champlain, the two Misses Hunter, and 
several others have remained graven upon the 
memory of all the French officers." Prince do 
Broglie makes a delightful comparison between 
the various charming daughters of Newport, set- 
ting off Miss Champlain of the beautiful eyes 
against the Misses Hunter, "her rivals in beauty 
and reputation," but preferring the former — 
"no matter what Fersen says about it," thus 
showing that the question was seriously debated 
by the French officers. But Polly Ley ton, the 
Quakeress, "a masterpiece of nature," enchanted 
them all by her simple graces, — "every time I 
think of her," says de Broglie, "I decide to write 
a huge volume against the dress, artificial airs and 
coquetry of certain ladies whom fashion admires." 
These and other fair ones, like Miss Spindley and 
Miss Sylven seemed so to regret the approaching 
departure of the French army, that it was de- 
cided to give them a ball. All the preparations 
were placed in the hands of Desoteux Cormatin, 
who later fought for the Vendeans and signed 
[i58] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

their peace agreement with the repubhc (1795), 
and he succeeded in assembhng twenty charming 
dames and damsels, and the dance and accom- 
panying supper "passed off very agreeably." "I 
left Newport with regret," says the Due de Lau- 
zun, "for I had such an agreeable circle there." 

The change for the worse set in soon after the 
war, and so rapid was it that the Newport seen 
by Brissot in 1788 is unrecognizable as the prede- 
cessor of the Newport of to-day: "The State of 
Rhode Island is regarded as possessing the best 
harbors in the United States, in fact Newport 
seems destined by nature to be a considerable 
port. The harbor is good and fit for the largest 
vessels. This town played a considerable role in 
the last war. It was then flourishing. The suc- 
cessive sojourns of the American, English and 
French armies left a good deal of money there. 
AU has changed since the peace. The solitude 
which reigns there, interrupted only by groups of 
idlers passing the entire day with folded arms at 
the street corners, the dilapidation of most of the 
houses, the miserable suppHes of the shops which 
display nothing but coarse stuffs, packages of 
matches, baskets of bread, or other cheap mer- 
chandise; the grass growing in the Court House 
square; the badly paved and muddy streets; the 
rags hung up at the windows, or covering the 
heads of women, the lank children, or the pale, 
[i59] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

cadaverous men whose sunken eyes and sliifty 
look make the observer uncomfortable; all an- 
nounce misery, the reign of bad failh, and the 
effects of bad government. I visited the market 
place. Heavens, how different from those of 
Boston and Philadelphia ! Some mediocre cuts 
of meat awaited purchasers who never came. I 
enquired the reason of an American who was 
well informed on the local situation. He told 
me that most of the inliabitants lived on fish 
which they caught themselves, on potatoes, and 
other vegetables wliich they raise in their own 
gardens — few ate meat. The farmers no longer 
send beef or mutton to its markets. Newport 
seemed to me a tomb where hving skeletons quar- 
relled over a few herbs. It seemed a city in 
which pestilence and fire had destroyed both the 
inhabitants and their houses." By the time La 
Rochefoucauld arrived, its worst days were over, 
and better ones already in sight: "Before the 
Revolutionary War there were ten thousand in- 
habitants at Newport wliile Providence had only 
one thousand; to-day Newport is reduced to five 
thousand and Providence has six or seven thou- 
sand. The cause of tliis change is the number 
of rich people which Newport lost by emigration. 
The famiUes who sympathized with the Revolu- 
tion left the city when the Enghsh were in pos- 
session of it, and are established at Providence, 
li6o] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

taking all their goods and chattels there; and 
those who were attached to the English cause 
followed the English troops when they were 
forced to evacuate the Island. The pohtical 
troubles which for a long time disturbed Rhode 
Island have prolonged and confirmed this condi- 
tion of distress at Newport, and it is only in the 
last two or three years that its commerce has 
begun to pick up a bit. The houses in Newport 
are almost all small and ugly. They are of wood, 
unpainted. In every respect this town has all 
the marks of decadence. The harbor is the 
only thing which shows any sign of wealth." It 
is not often that the Frenchmen, ever prone to 
make predictions concerning America and things 
American, guessed so correctly as did La Roche- 
foucauld when he said: "Newport seems destined 
from its advantages to be a navy-yard of the 
United States, when she has a navy." 

Chastellux, speaking of the days when the 
French army arrived at Newport, and that city 
was enjoying a prosperity unfortunately soon to 
be bhghted, says of its rival: "The city of Provi- 
dence is built on the bank of a river hardly six 
miles in length. It has only one street but this 
is very long. The Fauxbourg, which is pretty 
considerable, is on the other side of the river. 
This city is pretty. The houses are not large but 
well built and very comfortable inside." When 
[i6i] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

Segur visited it at the close of the war, he found 
that "Providence, which ought at present to be 
a great and populous city, could then already 
pass for a pretty little town. It contained only 
three thousand inhabitants, but all I think en- 
joyed comfortable circumstances resulting from 
constant work and active industry." Prince de 
Broglie gives a pretty picture of life in Providence, 
while the French army was in quarters there 
after Yorktown. "General Rochambeau," says 
he, "to distract liis army, and please the ladies,'* 
gave several balls in "the fine large public hall 
destined for that purpose." At the first one of 
these entertainments de Broghe remarked the 
Misses Bown, sisters of the "Governor of the 
town," whom he does not describe because he 
"did not wish to turn all the men's heads, and 
make all the women jealous," after which saga- 
cious phrase he proceeds nevertheless to paint 
flattering portraits of them both. But by the 
time Brissot had reached America the change had 
come; "The silence which reigns on Sunday in 
all American cities reigned also on Monday in 
Providence. Everything proclaimed the decline 
of business." After this depression things looked 
up and we are glad to read in La Rochefoucauld of 
the great improvement which a little later had 
begun in this leading city of Rhode Island: "The 
surroundings of Providence are more agreeable 
[162] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

than those of Newport and give a great idea of 
the place. The town occupies both banks of the 
river. It has two parts connected by a well- 
built bridge. Its large, well-built, well-painted 
houses are very numerous. The streets are 
paved. This town is constantly growing and the 
hopes of a more considerable growth are so great 
that streets and ground plans of houses yet to be 
built are already laid out well up the hillside. 
Commerce, as I have said, is much more consid- 
erable in Providence than Newport — four or five 
times more." He regrets that Providence as well 
as Newport engages in the odious slave-trade. 

Hartford failed, for some reason or another, to 
make a favorable impression upon the French- 
men who visited it. Brissot was the one who 
had the best things to say, although his opening 
sentence arouses one's suspicion as to the value 
of his testimony: "I passed through Hartford 
twice, both times at night, so that I cannot give 
an exact description of it. The town appeared to 
me a considerable one. It is a rural city for most 
of the inhabitants are farmers. Everybody there 
is well-to-do. It is regarded as one of the most 
agreeable in Connecticut for its society." He be- 
comes more enthusiastic as soon as he gets out- 
side the city limits: "The country round about 
Hartford is very well cultivated, and there are 
elegant houses, large fields covered with herds of 
[ i63 ] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

cattle, which are enormously fat and supply the 
markets of New York and even Philadelphia etc., 
etc. In describing the outskirts of Hartford we 
are at the same time picturing all of Connecticut, 
and especially the surroundings of Middletown 
and of New Haven." From the summary way 
in which Chastellux disposes of this capital of 
Connecticut one would think that the pet of 
American society must have received some severe 
rebuff there: "The city of Hartford is not worth 
stopping for, either when you are travelling 
through it or when you speak of it. It consists 
of one long and very handsome street, parallel to 
the river. It is rather wide and the houses are 
not far apart. Besides, it has many annexes. 
Everything is Hartford for six leagues round, but 
East Hartford and West Hartford are separate 
towns, and are composed of houses scattered 
through the country." 

New Haven honored itself by electing to citi- 
zenship on September 23, 1784, certain of the 
French visitors, and among others, the Marquis 
of Condorcet, which explains his pseudonym, "A 
citizen of New Heaven" [sic], affixed to his four 
letters which appear at the end of Mazzei's book 
upon America. It is no wonder the distinguished 
marquis fully appreciated this civic compliment, 
coming as it did from the first city to be organ- 
ized in New England, and whose first mayor, 
[i64] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

Roger Sherman, bad served with Jefferson on the 
committee to draft the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. "There was probably no place in the 
country from 1786 to 1788 [says Governor Bald- 
win in his erudite brochure on these letters of 
Condorcet] of the size of New Haven, which 
could have furnished so many men capable of 
writing effectively on topics of constitutional gov- 
ernment, and of treating them from so many 
points of view." Brissot was also elected to 
honorary citizenship, and, therefore, it is no sur- 
prise to find that this generally serious gentleman 
fairly blossoms out when he treats of New Haven 
and assumes a style more befitting Chastellux than 
the future leader of the Girondins: "New Haven 
yields not at all to Weatherfields in the beauty of 
its fair sex. At the balls which take place there 
during the winter it is not unusual, despite Puri- 
tan austerity, to witness a hundred charming 
girls attired in those brilliant colors seen so sel- 
dom as you go toward the middle states, and that, 
too, dressed with simple elegance." Notwith- 
standing Brissot's flight of enthusiasm, we learn 
from La Rochefoucauld that "the fortunes of the 
inhabitants are modest. Most of them have 
farms in the neighborhood from which they draw 
their provisions; these small estates, each ca- 
pable of supplying the needs of a family, deprive 
market-gardeners of a chance of selling vegetables 
[i65] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

in New Haven, so Ihey are sent to New York. 
Two rich merchants last year erected at a large 
cost a cotton factory two miles from the town." 
He goes on to describe the place as follows: "The 
city of New Haven occupies a large area, for the 
houses are generally set well apart. Cultivated 
fields are to be seen in the middle of the town. 
All the streets are straight and cut each other at 
right angles. The houses, mostly of wood, are 
small and pretty. The streets are planted with 
trees. Two large edifices in brick belonging to 
the college, a fine church, and a State House adorn 
the principal square, in the midst of which, how- 
ever, there also appears the gloomy spectacle of 
a cemetery. The general appearance of the town 
is agreeable. It seems to be so located that it 
ought to be healthy, and they say that the mor- 
tality is lower than in any other city of the United 
States." Mandrillon gives as a reason for its 
commercial importance that "the port and city 
of New Haven are the general rendez-vous of the 
colony, and it is there that all their business is 
transacted. The city is situated on the inden- 
tation of a bay leading off the stretch of water 
separating Long Island from the mainland. It 
was formerly the capital of a colony of the same 
name, but was re-united to Connecticut in 1C64 
by a charter of Charles II. The instruction of 
youth is carefully looked after there. To this 
[i66] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

effect they have founded a college which is very 
well attended. It is called Yare [ !] Hall." 

It is well to begin our account of Albany by 
reciting the favorable impression it made upon 
Chastellux when he first approached it, because 
most of the other French comments are not so 
kindly, due possibly to French inability to appre- 
ciate the phlegmatic Dutch temperament: "The 
valley tlirough which this river [Hudson] runs, 
and Albany, built in an amphitheatre on its west- 
ern bank, would have presented a most agreeable 
prospect if snow had not somewhat disfigured it. 
A handsome house, built half-way up opposite the 
ferry, attracted one's attention, and seemed to 
invite strangers to stop at General Schuyler's, 
who was both its owner and architect." But alas ! 
this favorable first impression was rudely read- 
justed by his annoyance at the celebration of 
New Year's Eve in that otherwise usually staid 
and respectable city. Nevertheless, he did not 
fail to bear witness to the dignity and poise which 
apparently attended their form of inebriety, for 
he reports that next morning he met a number 
of drunken folk about the streets who astonished 
him by walking without slipping on the icy side- 
walks, whilst he, cold sober, had the greatest diffi- 
culty in staying on his legs. La Rochefoucauld 
devotes much more attention to this city than 
any of his compatriots, as indeed but few of them 
[167] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

visited it: "There are in Albany six thousand in- 
habitants, of which two thousand are slaves; the 
laws of New York authorize slavery. All the old 
houses are built in the Dutch fashion. The front 
wall rises by a series of steps in a pyramid, ter- 
minated either by a picturesque chimney or by 
some iron figures, etc. All the houses built in 
the last ten years are brick, tall and large, in the 
English style. The Council is composed at pres- 
ent of young men who allege that they are busy 
embellishing the town and making it comfort- 
able, but in this city there is an apathy, an igno- 
rance, and antiquity of ideas which does not per- 
mit the belief that these efforts will be worth 
considering for a long time. Young men there, 
I believe, are born old ! There are five churches 
in Albany, one the Dutch Lutheran, a building of 
very Gothic and rather curious construction, and 
one each of the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, 
German Calvinists, and Methodists. Hospitality 
to strangers does not seem to be the dominating 
quality of the citizens of Albany. The few that 
we have seen are dull, heavy, hve at home with a 
wife sometimes pretty, often awkward, to whom 
they do not say thirty words a day although they 
call her 'my dear.' There are doubtless excep- 
tions both in the charms of the ladies and in the 
easy and confiding manner of their husbands with 
them, but they are said to be rare. The ancient 
[i68] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

forms, the old, circumspect and timidly avari- 
cious customs of the early Dutch are religiously 
preserved in Albany." He says they are so apa- 
thetic that Connecticut is getting the new West 
Indies trade away from them, and two important 
cities built in their immediate neighborhood at New 
City and Troy, also, by superior enterprise, are 
cutting into their commerce. "Albany is one of 
the most ancient establishments of North America. 
Forty-five ships belonging to its inhabitants and 
forty-five others to New York or other places along 
the river supply the commerce of Albany, which is 
steady but does not seem lucrative." 

Most of the French travellers passed through 
Baltimore at one time or another, and all agreed 
in speaking of its rapid growth and active, bus- 
tling appearance. Beaujour says that it is one 
of those American cities whose walls were raised 
as if by enchantment through foreign trade, and 
includes it in his list of three (with Boston and 
Philadelphia) whose people do not die content 
unless they have changed their profession three 
or four times during their lives. Several years 
before his visit there came to it, in 1781, Abbe 
Robin, who observes "Baltimore thirty years ago 
was only a little village, but to-day it is a large 
and wealthy city. Its form is that of a crescent. 
The northern part seems to rise from the bosom 
of the waters and to forecast its future greatness. 
[169I 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

Lord Baltimore, an Irish Catholic, established 
two hundred Catholics in Maryland and gave liis 
name to this city." "It is of considerable size," 
remarked du Bourg, "and well-built — it even has 
sidewalks!" From Brissot, who went there in 
1788, we learn: "Baltimore has about two thou- 
sand houses and fourteen thousand inhabitants. 
It is very irregularly built and on land slightly 
raised above the Patabsco. There is stagnant 
water in the city, few of the streets are paved, 
and are frightfully muddy after a rain. All this 
would seem to prove the air unhealthy, neverthe- 
less, ask the inhabitants and they will tell you 
that it is not. Baltimore was only a village be- 
fore the war." In 1791 Chateaubriand found 
Baltimore "a pretty city, very clean and very 
bustling," although his stay there was but a 
brief one, only long enough to pay the captain of 
his ship for bringing him from Europe, and to 
give him "a farewell dinner in an excellent tavern 
near the harbor." He then straightway engaged 
a seat in the stage which ran tri-weekly to Phila- 
delphia, and which started for that city at the 
convenient hour of four the next morning ! St. 
Mery, who landed at Norfolk, Virginia, and 
passed through Baltimore in May, 1794, on his 
way to Philadelphia, makes sundry significant 
comments: "Baltimore is growing rapidly and 
is elegantly constructed with brick houses mostly 
[ 170] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

two stories high, fine sidewalks in front of them, 
some of which are ten feet wide (but entrances 
to cellars take up half); straight, well-paved 
streets; street lamps here, as is generally cus- 
tomary in America; population ten thousand, of 
which ten per cent are negroes; twelve churches 
of ten sects and one theatre. The hotels lend 
you slippers so that your boots or shoes will be 
found clean outside the door in the morning." 

Of all the cities in our country, none have 
changed so much as New York since it was vis- 
ited by the Frenchmen after the English had 
evacuated it. As it had been in the hands of 
the latter during the war, the French who came 
over to fight did not have a fair opportunity to 
compare it with our other cities, but those who 
came a few years later found it quite different 
from its sisters. Milfort found New Yorkers "very 
affable and hospitable. They receive strangers 
kindly." Pontgibaud says : "My surprise equalled 
my curiosity when I entered New York. I ad- 
mired — from within, this time — this handsome 
city which had then but twenty-five thousand 
inliabitants, and the beautiful neighboring island 
called Long Island. I was delighted with all I 
saw — the elegance and cleanliness of the houses 
added to the beauties of virgin nature." Chateau- 
briand describes New York as "a gay, populous, 
and commercial city" — this was in 1791. The 
[171] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

captious Beaujour actually unbends enough to 
praise it: "New York has a more sniiUng ap- 
pearance than Philadelphia, and more closely re- 
sembles an European city. It is built at the 
mouth of the Hudson on a tongue of land which 
stretches between the river and Long Island Sound 
and wliich has been detached by a cutting from 
the mainland. The esplanade called 'The Bat- 
tery,' located at the sharp angle formed by the 
meeting of the Hudson and the sea, affords one 
of the most beautiful views in the world." Its 
delightful situation particularly impressed Bonnet, 
who concluded that "a sojourn in New York is 
good for the health." 

Brissot gives us an account of how the city's busi- 
ness reverses, sustained during and after the Revo- 
lutionary War, were being recouped: "Men who 
doubt the prodigious effect of liberty upon man 
and his industry should go to America, — of what 
miracles will they be witnesses! WTiile almost 
everywhere in Europe towns and cities are falhng 
into ruins, here new buildings are going up on 
all sides. New York has been partly consumed 
by fire since the last war, but the traces of this 
terrible conflagration are fast disappearing. The 
activity which reigns everywhere proclaims that 
prosperity has already begun. Everywhere they 
arc broadening and extending the streets." He 
describes new buildings that are going up, and 
[ 172 ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

how they reclaimed a two-hundred-foot strip of 
kind along the North River. "I see nothing but 
workmen marking out lots, building, paving, 
constructing pubhc works. They are erecting a 
building for Congress and repairing a hospital. 
The high cost of living is generally on the increase 
in New York since the war." He gives legal fees, 
doctors' fees, the cost of board and lodging, and 
adds that there are no cafes in New York. Much 
as he prefers Philadelphia, he cannot help no- 
ticing that building in that city is going on less 
slowly than in New York. 

Mandrillon does not agree that New York was a 
bustling place — he even called us lazy! "New 
York, an important town, known to-day (as is the 
entire colony) under the name of New York, has 
lost much of its importance and prosperity since 
the last Revolution. Although the streets are ir- 
regular, the city does not for that reason present a 
less interesting appearance, because of the gen- 
eral cleanhness which reigns there. The houses, 
built of brick and roofed with tiles, are more 
comfortable than elegant. Everyone is well-to- 
do, food is abundant, of excellent quahty and 
cheap. The poorest class of people have an as- 
sured support from the oyster-fisheries, which 
employ two hundred boats. It is perhaps to this 
general ease of circumstances that is due the in- 
difference and laziness for which its inhabitants 
[173] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

are reproached, and which has had so marked an ' 
influence upon the customs and society of that 
city." To accuse New Yorkers of laziness is 
surely bad enough, but Bourgeois goes further by 
alleging that "they lake part in contraband trade 
with marvellous skill" — shades of the custom 
house, that such a thing should have been ! 

WTien speaking of Philadelphia we mentioned 
the absence there of public promenades criti- 
cised by several writers. Perrin du Lac found two 
such promenades in New York, but, says he, 
"they are little used. Promenading does not 
seem to be regarded as a relaxation by these 
hardworking people. ... As for the women, 
they prefer the principal street, with its roomy 
sidewalks shaded by fine trees, where they can 
enjoy the pleasure of looking at the elegant shops 
which line it on both sides, from one end to the 
other of its entire length." He is struck by the 
fact that the New York "streets are wide and 
have sidewalks. The streets are clean, and reg- 
ularly hghted by night." 

Crevecoeur, by reason of his long residence in 
New York as French Consul, is perhaps the best 
qualified of all to describe what he saw going on 
about him: "The city of New York is handsome 
although irregular. This irregularity proceeds 
from the nature of the soil, from the steepness of 
the peninsula on which the earlier houses are 
[174] 




Saint John de Crevecoeur, 1786. 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

built, as well as from the necessity of continually 
making artificial ground to increase the extent of 
the city and procure for its trade the needful 
warehouses and quays. The inhabitants derive 
this taste for building along the water from the 
early Dutch settlers, and the admirable skill with 
which they accomplish it from their own wisdom. 
There is not, I believe, another city on this con- 
tinent where the art of laying the foundations of 
quays and of constructing them has been pushed 
further. I have seen one built forty feet into the 
water. This was done with trunks of pine trees 
fastened together, which they drive in with rocks, 
and then cover the surface with earth. Beaver 
Street, which to-day is quite a ways from the 
water, was named thus because formerly it was 
a small bay in which these animals had erected 
a dam. I have conversed with old inhabi- 
tants who told me that they had seen the sea 
mount up to the very neighborhood of the City 
Hall. Certain streets have sidewalks on both 
sides paved with slabs of rock and adorned with 
plane-trees, whose shade in summer is equally 
pleasant for the passersby and for the houses. 
Here may be seen a union of Dutch neatness 
with English taste and architecture. The houses 
are located, finished, and painted with the great- 
est care. Here the merchants are intelligent, 
able, and rich, and the artisans very skilful, es- 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

pecially the carpenters, cabinet-makers, and join- 
ers. Stone being rare, nearly the whole city is 
built of brick. Let those who, Hke myself, have 
experienced the remarkable hospitality of New 
Yorkers, praise it as it deserves. New York being 
the favorite port for English packet-boats, this 
city is necessarily the first that European strangers 
enter. The reception which they receive here 
suffices to give them a high idea of American 
generosity, as well as of the simple and cordial 
friendliness wliich they may expect in the other 
cities of this continent. The streets are fre- 
quently cleaned and are lighted on dark nights. 
The city contains thirty thousand inhabitants 
and twenty churches belonging to different sects. 
It is also a pleasure to see a college, beautifully 
built; it is furnished with an excellent fibrary 
and a great number of costly mathematical in- 
struments." 

The most recent and striking improvement in 
New York has been the widening of our great Fifth 
Avenue, effected by removing the encroachments 
of front door-steps, etc. Of how ancient a growth 
were these encroachments appears from the fact 
that certain of their predecessors were noted by 
St. Mery over a century ago: "In New York two 
benches parallel to each other, stretch out before 
each front door," and he also notes that cellar doors 
were allowed to take up part of the sidewalks. In 
[176] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

respect to those as well as to certain other muni- 
cipal annoyances, we have been a long-suffering 
people, but "all's well that ends well" ! 

St. Mery tells us that "Brooklyn has about a 
hundred houses," so it would be rather in an 
article on country hfe than in this chapter that 
one should depict those early beginnings of the 
Brooklyn that to-day boasts nearly two million in- 
habitants. Another great change in the neigh- 
borhood of New York is revealed by Bourgeois's 
account of New Rochelle, in those early days 
"inhabited only by Frenchmen, who speak the 
purest French in the United States, and indeed 
but little else; children are sent there to learn it, 
and everybody there speaks it, even the negroes." 

New Orleans came under our flag so soon after 
the conclusion of the quarter century we have 
been studying that reference to that charming 
city is hardly out of place here, although Perrin 
du Lac thought it "does not merit favorable 
mention." Baudry des Lozieres (whose scope of 
studies in the colonial field knew no bound, ranging 
from botany and medicine to recording savage 
dialects, or eulogizing colonial officials) was greatly 
taken with the city of New Orleans. "It lies," 
says he, "in the midst of delicious gardens," and 
"since the Spaniards have rebuilt the city in 
brick, it has much in common with Pliiladelphia." 
Bourgeois reports that "many of the houses are 
[ 177 1 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

built of brick, two stories high, placed in a line, 
and presenting a pleasing prospect. Others are 
only of wood, adorned with a balcony, which 
makes them agreeable to look upon. The streets 
are wide and straight as a string." He also no- 
ticed the number of fine gardens and "the superb 
promenade which runs along the top of the 
levee." General CoUot admired New Orleans, 
and said of St. Louis ("wliich from a military 
standpoint has one of the best situations on the 
Mississippi River") that "it will be to New 
Orleans what Albany is to New York city." It 
was Berquin-Duvallon who wrote at the greatest 
length of New Orleans. He attributes to Missis- 
sippi River water such marvellous powers of fecun- 
dity as to make one wonder that the states ad- 
joining that stream are not vastly over-populated. 
He would have us believe that its effect upon the 
gentler sex of New Orleans was such that it was 
not unusual to see there a mother, her daughter, 
and her grand-daughter all about to have children 
at the same time ! 

And now to conclude our long excursion from 
city to city by one to Washington, the beautiful 
capital of our country, honored with the most 
precious name that our history can boast. Al- 
though Blanchard, after visiting Mount Vernon, 
stopped at Georgetown, and nmst have passed 
over the site where Washington now stands, there 
[178] 




'S " 






,— d 

o -« 

U I 

y a 






EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

was as yet nothing for him to see but fields and 
roUing country. Minister Ternant in October, 
1791, "was unwilhng to quit Georgetown without 
going to see the site selected for the federal city; 
the situation seemed to me interesting in every 
respect." He befieved that the federal treasury 
would be enriched by "thirty million Hvres tour- 
nois" from the sale of building lots there. He 
reports President Washington to be greatly in- 
terested in the city named after him, and that 
everybody hoped he would live long enough to 
see Congress transferred thither. The Marquise 
de la Tour du Pin, in 1794, refers casually to "the 
new city of Washington, which they are beginning 
to build." We have to wait until 1810 to hear 
anything definite, and even then Beaujour fixes 
the population at only 6,000: "The city of Wash- 
ington, the present site of the Federal Govern- 
ment, has been laid out on a very handsome and 
uniform plan. Its situation between Maryland 
and Virginia, near the Chesapeake, which is the 
heart of the United States, and on elevated land 
whither the Potomac brings the largest vessels, 
has been well chosen. The town has an area of 
4,124 acres, of which 712 are reserved for avenues 
and 3,412 for sites for houses, but with the ex- 
ception of some buildings destined for the gov- 
ernment (the principal one of which, where Con- 
gress sits, bears the pompous name of 'Capitol'), 
[ 179] 



FRENCH I^IEMORIES 

none have yet been built, and it appears that the 
very grandeur of the plan will either prevent or 
at least retard its execution, because this country 
is not yet rich enough to populate so large a site. 
Washington to-day resembles those Russian cities 
marked out in the deserts of Tartary, within 
which one sees nothing but empty fields and 
isolated houses." 



[180I 



CHAPTER VIII 

COUNTRY LIFE 

To understand the United States of to-day, a 
foreigner must study our cities, because they 
contain forty-seven per cent of our entire popula- 
tion. During revolutionary days they contained 
only ten per cent, according to Bonnet, Brissot, 
and Bayard, who at that time estimated the pro- 
portion of our country residents as high as nine- 
tenths of the whole. It was but natural that this 
distribution of our population should result, as 
Bonnet noticed, in "this people having six land- 
owners for every one lacking it, instead of being 
made up as is the French nation almost entirely 
of tenants." Radical indeed is this change in our 
drift-tendencies of population effected by less 
than a century and a half of national existence! 
From the foregoing it is obvious that to understand 
the Americans of those early days we must go out 
into the country and see how life there affected 
the customs of our forebears. First and foremost, 
if Rochambeau is to be beheved, it made for pa- 
triotism more than did residence in crowded cen- 
tres; for he was quick to notice that few country 
[i8i] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

folk were Tories, wliile "one ought not to be sur- 
prised that merchants or other dwellers in tlie 
ports" showed less zeal for the Revolution than 
the farmers. It was, therefore, decidedly appro- 
priate that George Washington, representing as 
he did not only that nine-tenths majority, but 
also its highest patriotism, should have been the 
first President of our republic. And where better 
than at the home of that distinguished gentleman- 
farmer, his retreat from the responsibilities of 
statesmanship, can we begin our investigation of 
the country life of his time? Let us visit it with 
our friend Blanchard, commissary in Rocham- 
beau's army on its march north after the glorious 
victory at Yorktown. Another of our party shall 
be Custine, an officer who had been appointed 
lieutenant at the tender age of nine, and whose 
brilliant career was soon to be ended by the guil- 
lotine (August 28, 1793) — an episode in an hys- 
teria of "crimes committed in the name of 
liberty." Custine kept a diary during his stay in 
America, but unfortunately it has never been 
found. But let us turn to Blanchard's narrative. 
"General Washington's home and birthplace 
is situated between Colchester and Alexandria. 
Mrs. Washington had arrived there the evening 
before. She invited Monsieur de Custine, who 
commanded our division, to dine with her, and 
to bring with Imn several of his officers; he sug- 
[182] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

gested my going; we arrived there ten strong. 
Mrs. Washington is about fifty years old, short and 
stout, and of comely appearance. She was sim- 
ply dressed, and her manner is unaffected. She 
had with her three other ladies, relatives. As to 
her residence, it is the prettiest country house I 
have yet seen in America. It is symmetrically 
built, and has two stories, counting the garrets, 
where pleasant bedrooms are fitted up. Around 
about are a number of cabins for negroes, of whom 
the general owns many, for they are needed on 
his immense estates, estimated to contain ten 
thousand acres of land — parts of it excellent, as 
I noticed. A large portion consists of wood- 
lands where Mr. Washington enjoyed shooting 
before the war, which inclined him to the mih- 
tary life he has since led. In the neighborhood of 
the house the land is not fertile nor are the trees 
fine — even the garden is arid. What must have 
decided the general's parents to chose this dwell- 
ing place is the view, which is extremely beautiful. 
The Potomac flows along the bottom of the gar- 
den, and the largest warships can anchor there. 
It divides into several branches, but just at this 
point is half a league wide. The entire outlook 
is most agreeable. The opposite bank ought to 
be more settled with houses and villages. In 
short, it is a handsome abode — befitting Gen- 
eral Washington. We quitted liis worthy spouse 
[i83] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

that evening, after spending a very agreeable and 
truly interesting day." 

Passing from one great American to another, 
from George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, 
we shall see that although the latter was visited 
at his country house by several French officers 
and travellers, he clearly found the Marquis de 
Chastellux the most congenial of them all. To 
that sympathetic annahst, therefore, we will turn 
for his impressions of the hfe led by that dis- 
tinguished American in his country retreat. 
Under the guidance of a loquacious Irishman, 
Chastellux arrived at the foot of some hills from 
which point he "had no difficulty in recognizing 
on one of their summits Mr. Jefferson's house, 
for 'it shines alone in these retreats.' He him- 
self built it, and chose the site; nature owed it 
to such a sage and man of taste to offer him as 
his heritage the spot where he could best study 
and enjoy her. He calls his house Monticello 
(Httle mountain), a modest name, as it stands on 
a very high one ! — but it shows the owner's fond- 
ness for the language of Italy, and even more for 
the fine arts, of which that land was the cradle, 
and still is the refuge. From this on I no longer 
needed a guide; I dismissed my Irishman, and 
after mounting for over half an hour by a fairly 
easy road, I arrived at Monticello. Tliis resi- 
dence, of wliich Mr. Jefferson was the architect 
[1841 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

(and at times the builder) is in the Italian style, 
quite elegant, though not faultless, nevertheless; 
it consists of a large square paviHon, entered from 
two porticos adorned with columns. The ground 
floor consists chiefly of a large drawing-room, very 
lofty, decorated entirely in antique style; above 
the drawing-room is a hbrgiry of the same shape. 
Two small wings, of only a ground floor and attic, 
flank this pavilion and communicate with kitchens, 
pantries, etc., which on each side form a sort of 
basement, surmounted by a terrace. It is not 
alone to describe the house that I enter into these 
details, but because it in nowise resembles the 
others to be seen in this country; in fact it may 
be said that Mr. Jefferson is the first American 
to consult the fine arts in regard to his dwelhng- 
place. But I ought to concern myself with him 
alone — I should portray a man not yet forty, 
with a tall figure and kind, agreeable face, but 
whose wit and information could sufficiently re- 
place aU external charms — an American, who 
though never yet out of his own country, is musi- 
cian, draftsman, geometrician, astronomer, physi- 
cist, jurisconsult, statesman — an American sen- 
ator who sat two years in the famous Congress, 
author of the Revolution (which is never mentioned 
without respect, unhappily mingled with too 
many regrets !) — a governor of Virginia, filling 
that trying post during the invasions of Arnold, 
[i85] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

of Philips, and of Cornwallis — lastly, a phi- 
losopher, withdrawn from the world and affairs, 
because he loves the world only so far as he be- 
heves that he can be useful to it, and because 
his fellow citizens are not yet in a state to bear 
the hght or to suffer criticism. A gentle, amiable 
wife, pretty children he is bringing up carefully, 
a house to beautify, great possessions to improve, 
sciences and arts to cultivate — all these are what 
remain to Mr. Jefferson, after having played a 
distinguished part on the stage of the New World, 
and what he prefers to the honorable appoint- 
ment of minister plenipotentiary in Europe. 
The visit I paid him was not unexpected; he had 
asked me some time before to spend a few days in 
the bosom of his family, that is, in the heart of 
the mountains. Nevertheless I found his greet- 
ing grave and even cold; but after spending two 
hours with him, I felt I had known him all my 
hfe. Walks, the hbrary, and, above all, conver- 
sation — always varied, always interesting, always 
maintained by that sweet content two persons 
feel who, on exchanging sentiments and opinions, 
find themselves in constant accord, and under- 
stand one another's half-expressed word — all these 
made four days pass for me hke four minutes. 
This conformity was so perfect that not only 
were our tastes alike, but even our preferences — 
those preferences which dry-as-dust and material 
[i86] 



[EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

minds ridicule as enthusiasm, and which men of 
sensibihty glorify under the same name. I re- 
call with pleasure that one evening as we were 
chatting over a bowl of punch after Mrs. Jeffer- 
son had withdrawn, we happened to speak of the 
poems of Ossian. It was as if an electric spark 
had flashed from one to the other ! — each recalled 
to the other certain passages of those subhme 
poems which had struck him most, and we con- 
versed upon them to my traveUing companions, 
who happily knew English well and could appre- 
ciate them, but who had never read them. Soon 
it was decided that the book should have its place 
as a toast — it was fetched, placed beside the 
punch-bowl, and together they lasted us far into 
the night ere we reahzed it ! At times physics, at 
others politics or art formed the subject of our 
conversations, for nothing has escaped Mr. Jef- 
ferson, and it seems as if, from his youth up, he 
had set his mind, hke his house, on heights from 
which he could contemplate the entire universe." 
A pleasant gUmpse at the country house of an- 
other historic American family is given by the 
Marquise de la Tour du Pin: "The Van Buren 
farm house, an old Dutch mansion, occupied a 
delightful site on the river bank. Though en- 
tirely isolated on the land side, it had easy com- 
munication with the other shore of the stream. 
Opposite, on the Canada road, rose a large tavern, 
[187] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

where one could get all kinds of information, 
newspapers, and notices of sale. Two or three 
stage-coaches passed it every day. Van Buren 
owned two canoes, and the river was always so 
calm we could cross it at any time. No road 
traversed this estate, shut in at some hundreds 
of toises (toise= about two yards) by a mountain, 
covered with noble forests, and also belonging to 
Van Buren. We sometimes thought tliis farm 
would suit us, but it was held at a higher figure 
than we could give. That alone prevented us 
from acquiring it, for the general rule in America 
at that time was (and I think still is), no matter 
how much a man was attached to his house, his 
farm, his horse, or his negro — if you offered him 
a third more than the value, you were sure, in 
a land where everything has a price, to become 
the owner!" 

One would naturally expect complimentary 
comments upon life in the country houses of great 
men such as those just described. But what of 
that enjoyed by the rank and file of our people 
— ^how did that strike the French.^ A soldier 
who spent only twenty-four days ashore in 
America, and who slept on the ground every 
night, never once during that entire period being 
able to change his clothes, could not be consid- 
ered a severe critic if he said unpleasant things 
of American country life ! And yet Comte de 
[ i88 ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

Revel, who had that very experience in the 
trenches before Yorktown, "saw some very fine 
houses which from their exteriors as well as their 
comfortable interiors seemed to belong to wealthy 
people." Nor was this his only amiable remark 
concerning those he had crossed the sea to aid. 
His friendly impressions of what little of American 
life he was able to see are rendered all the more 
valuable because they come from the only French- 
man so critical as to find fault with the discipline 
of French troops in service here; on that subject he 
is as severe as he was kindly to us. 

Turning from Revel and his brief stay to others 
who had ampler time to enter into the Hfe away 
from cities as led by our ancestors, let us accom- 
pany some of his compatriots on a round of visits 
to certain country houses, beginning with that 
of General Nelson, where we shall see what took 
place when adverse weather conditions kept them 
indoors. The general himself chanced to be away, 
but Chastellux says that his mother and liis wife 
"received me with all the interest, simplicity, and 
cordiahty customary in that family; but since in 
America they never feel that women alone can 
do the honors of a house, five or six Nelsons were 
assembled to receive me, among others. Secretary 
Nelson, uncle of the general, two of his brothers, 
and two sons of the secretary. All these young 
people were married, some had their wives and 
[189] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

children with them — all named Nelson, but ad- 
dressed by their baptismal names alone, so that 
during my two days in this truly patriarchal 
house it was impossible for me to learn who was 
who! When I say that I passed two days in 
this house it must be understood in the most 
literal sense, for the weather was so bad that we 
could not go out. As the accommodations were 
neither commodious nor spacious, the parlor, or 
salon, was occupied by all the company, espe- 
cially the men, from breakfast until bedtime, but 
the conversation was agreeable and well sustained. 
If you wished diversion you found at your hand 
very good Enghsh and French books. An ex- 
cellent breakfast at nine in the morning, a heavy 
dinner at two o'clock, tea and punch in the after- 
noon, and a light supper which looked very nice, 
made a pleasant division of the day for those 
whose stomachs could stand it. It perhaps mer- 
its observation that on this occasion where fifteen 
or twenty people, of whom all were strangers to 
the family and the land, found themselves thrown 
together in the country and forced by bad weather 
to remain indoors, there was no question of play- 
ing cards. How many parties of tric-trac, of 
whisk [sic], of lotto, would there have been 
among us as a necessary consequence of an ob- 
stinate rain ! Perhaps there would also have 
been more agreeable amusements to vary the 

[ 190] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

scene — music, drawing, reading aloud, and 
woman's fancy-work are resources unknown in 
America, but it must be hoped that they will 
not delay in acquiring them; certainly training 
was all that a Miss Tolliver needed, for she sang 
several songs with Enghsh words but Itahan 
music." 

Brissot shall tell us of a visit he made upon 
Senator Dalton of New Hampsliire while on his 
travels in the northeastern part of the country: 
"We left on Sunday and went to dine at Colonel 
Dalton's house, which is three miles from New- 
Berry on the Merrimac. His farm is well stocked; 
I saw thirty cows there, a large number of fat pigs, 
sheep, provisions in abundance, and a well-planted 
garden. Artichokes grow very well, but they only 
cultivate them out of curiosity, for they are not 
eaten. He takes great pains with his gardens, 
which are rather neglected in America. Mr. 
Dalton received me with that frankness which 
becomes a man in easy circumstances, and a man 
of talent — with that hospitality pecuhar to the 
inhabitants of Massachusetts and New Hamp- 
shire, which is certainly much greater there than 
in any of the Eastern or Middle States. The 
Americans do not know what we call large ban- 
quets and fetes. They treat strangers as they 
treat themselves every day, and they hve weU. 
They said to me that they could not understand 
[191] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

starving all the week in order to feast on Sun- 
day I This fact reveals a well-to-do people which 
does not concern itself overmuch with fasting. 
Mr. Dalton's family was a picture of patriarchal 
life, and of true domestic happiness. It was 
composed of four or five pretty, modest young 
persons dressed in simple silk gowns, for it was 
Sunday, and they had just come from meeting 
or church. Mr. Dalton had been speaker, or 
president of the legislative body of New Hamp- 
shire. He had the reputation of speaking well, 
and of conducting proceedings with dignity. He 
is now one of the senators in the national Con- 
gress." 

As a change from the sedateness of the enter- 
taimnent afforded by this serious household, and to 
get as many points of view as possible, let us turn 
to what Chastellux found near Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire: "Mr. Tracey returned with two well- 
appointed carriages and took me, as well as my 
stafT-officers, to his country house. This house is 
situated one mile from the town on a very pretty 
site, but I could not judge of it because it was al- 
ready night. Nevertheless, I went out to see the 
garden by moonlight; it is large and composed of 
different terraces. The house is very pretty and 
perfectly furnished. Everything displays that 
magnificence combined with simplicity which one 
finds only in merchants' houses. The evening 
[ 192] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

passed rapidly with the assistance of several 
glasses of punch and agreeable conversation. The 
ladies whom I found already assembled, were 
Mrs. Tracey, her two sisters, and Miss Lee, their 
cousin. Mrs. Tracey has an agreeable and ani- 
mated face, and her manners correspond. At 
ten o'clock they served an excellent supper with 
very good wine. Miss Lee sang, and persuaded 
Monsieur de Vaudreuil and Monsieur de Talley- 
rand to sing also. About midnight the ladies 
withdrew, but we continued to drink Madeira 
and Sherry. Mr. Tracey, following the custom 
of the country, offered us pipes, a proposition 
which was accepted by Monsieur de Talleyrand 
and Monsieur Montesquieu, with the result that 
they succeeded in getting themselves drunk and 
carried home, where they were very glad to find 
themselves in bed. As for me, I remained per- 
fectly calm, and continued to discuss commerce 
and politics with Mr. Tracey." 

Few of the Frenchmen travelled so widely in 
our country as Chastellux, which gave him pe- 
culiar advantages in knowing people of all sec- 
tions, and the fife they led in their homes. Let 
us stray with him as far as the Byrd estate on 
the James River in Virginia, a property that is 
still in the possession of that family: "I went 
on twenty -six miles in very hot weather and by a 
most agreeable road, every moment coming upon 
[193] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

fine residences, for the banks of the River James 
is the garden spot of Virginia. That of Mrs. 
Byrd (Westover), to which I was going, surpasses 
them all for magnificence of buildings, beauty of 
situation, and the charm of the society which 
one finds there. Mrs. Byrd is the widow of a 
colonel who served in the last war, and who was 
later a member of the Royal Council. She has 
taken charge of this fine house on the banks of 
the James, a valuable property, a considerable 
number of slaves, and some farms, which she has 
improved. She is forty-two, of a pleasing figure, 
and very spirited. By diligent effort and activ- 
ity she has to some extent repaired the effects 
of the dissipation of her husband, and her house 
is the most famous and agreeable of the neigh- 
borhood." Even more intimate than all of these 
accounts is one which the Due de Rochefoucauld 
gives of his stay at General Knox's country place. 
In it he voices the instinctive feeling of all the 
French writers on America that it was amid the 
leisure and seclusion of the country, rather than 
in the bustle of the city that a clear insight was 
to be had into the real character of the Ameri- 
can and his home. Says he: "Mrs. Knox gains 
greatly on acquaintance. If you have seen her 
only in Philadelphia you would think her never 
happy except at a table of commerce or of whisk 
[sic], but in her own country house she proves 
[194] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

bright, well educated, admirable in every respect, 
and full of merit. One recognizes a truly master 
mind. In the country Miss Knox loses her ex- 
cessive timidity. She lets one see that she is 
sprightly, clever, and gay." 

That the custom of "stirrup-cup" was pre- 
served among us appears from GhasteUux's ex- 
perience: "At Mrs. Erskine's at Ringwood, N. J., 
they gave me all the information I needed, and 
after having drunk a glass of madeira, accord- 
ing to the custom of the country which does not 
permit one to leave a house without having a 
drink, I remounted my horse." The writer can 
testify that the ancient hospitality of Ringwood 
has been worthily maintained. The Marquise de 
la Tour du Pin found when leaving the Lansing 
home, near Albany, that, "Madame Lansing hav- 
ing prepared for us a glass of madeira and a bis- 
cuit, it was absolutely necessary to partake, at 
the risk of being considered bad neighbors." Mr. 
Lansing was of Dutch parentage, and was greatly 
surprised to learn that his French neighbor, till- 
ing a modest farm near by, had once been the dip- 
lomatic representative of the French king in Hol- 
land! General Schuyler and "Mr. Renslaer" of 
Albany had advised those distinguished settlers 
that it was best "to divide our funds into three 
equal parts, one devoted to purchasing land, 
another to equipment, including slaves, horses, 
[195] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

COWS, agricultural implements, and furniture, and 
the third to provide against the unexpected (such 
as loss of slaves or cattle) and for living expenses." 

That pleasant word "picnic," so popular at all 
times in our country, played havoc with the spell- 
ing powers of the French. Their ways of render- 
ing it were various, of which let "pique-nique" 
be a sample. Their appreciation, however, of 
that rustic entertainment was as enthusiastic as 
their spelling of it was uncertain. Nor was this 
the only word to be mangled, for Baron Closen 
writes "Janckey Dudle" as the nickname given 
us by the English ! Milfort effectively disguises 
two of our Indian tribes, the Cherokees and the 
Choctaws, by calling them the Scherokys and the 
Tchactas, and spells Norwich (Connecticut) both 
Norege and Noraige; and Volney delights to tell of 
"Kentokey." 

Bayard shall give us an account of one picnic 
which he attended: "Laborers are sent the day 
before to cut down branches and make a small 
enclosure near a private house whose kitchen is 
lent for such cooking as is necessary, but always 
it must be near a river. The host brings cold 
meats, pastries, etc., and the china and silver are 
set out on tables covered with fine linen. As soon 
as a guest arrives, he is given cold punch in a large 
china loving-cup, often containing three or four 
bowlsful, which passes round the circle, and is 
[196] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

carried to every one's lips. Few French became 
accustomed to this ancient way of drinking, and 
in America, where ahnost all the men chew to- 
bacco, it is excessively untidy. In the cities every- 
body has his own glass for beer or wine, but 
toddy and punch are drunk from a loving-cup. 
Toddy is a drink made of brandy, sugar, and tepid 
water, in which are placed one or two roasted 
crab-apples and a little muscat. When the whole 
company is assembled, the servants put off in 
the boats, and nets are thrown into the water; the 
banks of the river resound with applause if the 
fishermen make a good catch. The fish are shown 
to the spectators who order them either to be 
cooked or thrown back into the water. The ladies 
intercede for the pretty ones, but the gourmands 
of America, much less gallant than those of Eu- 
rope, won't let a pleasing morsel escape for all the 
beautiful eyes in the world." 

Another form of rustic gayety, but this of a 
much more practical sort, was the gathering of 
neighbors, known as a "corn husking." "This," 
says the Marquise de la Tour du Pin, "is called a 
frohck." How appropriate was the name shall ap- 
pear from the kind of refreshment offered those 
undertaking this neighborly task of rapidly per- 
forming for each farmer something which unaided 
he could not do in the two days which, the author- 
ess says, "is as long as the corn could safely he 
[ 197] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

unhusked. First they sweep tlie barn floor as 
carefully as if they were going to give a ball. 
When night comes on they light the candles, and 
all the assembled guests set to work. There is 
always one of them singing a song or telling a 
story. About midnight, there is served boiling 
milk with cider in it. To this is added five or 
six pounds of sugar if one feels inchned to do the 
magnificent, or if not, the same quantity of molas- 
ses, then some spice, cloves, cinnamon, or nutmeg, 
etc. Our industrious guests consumed, to our 
great dehght, an immense caldron of this mixture, 
along with much toasted bread, and left us at five 
o'clock of a frosty morning, saying (this in English) 
' famous good people, those from the old country ' ! " 
Only one disagreeable note is struck in the many 
pleasing accounts of our country life, and that is 
caused by the nearer view of slavery which it 
aff'orded, an institution to which the French, one 
and all, objected heartily. Many were the meth- 
ods they suggested for removing that stain from 
our escutcheon, the most novel and diverting being 
one from Bonnet. He urged that the making of 
maple-sugar would, if properly pushed, abohsh 
slavery, because it would so reduce the price of 
sugar as to ruin the West Indian cane planters, 
whom he chiefly blames for the importation of 
slaves. If they could no longer profitably make 
cane sugar, the reason for the slave-trade would 
[198] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

cease. Fortunately, that stain is no longer on 
our nation, and we may pass over the many allu- 
sions to it in the French memoirs. Its effect on 
the habits and manners of the slave owners was 
so often commented upon that perhaps, to com- 
plete our picture of country life at that time, we 
should include one which Mazzei quotes approv- 
ingly from Abbe Raynal, although beheving as 
we do that the abohtion of slavery has remedied 
the results attributed to it: "Men who prefer the 
tranquillity of country hfe to a tumultuous so- 
journ in cities, should be naturally economical 
and laborious, but they never were that in Virginia. 
The people there always took great pains in fur- 
nishing their houses. They liked frequently to 
entertain their neighbors, and that too with much 
display. They were always glad to flaunt the 
greatest possible luxury before the eyes of English 
traveUers whom business brought to their plan- 
tations, but always they shpped back into that 
laziness and carelessness which is customary in 
regions where slavery is established." 

To slavery, however, we are indebted for one of 
the most touching episodes in all these French mem- 
oirs — one from the pen of the Marquise de la Tour 
du Pin, describing the purchase by the marquis of 
a negro woman, long separated from her husband 
by the cruel laws of slavery, and her delight at 
finding that he also owned her husband, so that 

[199] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

they could once more be united. Nor did our 
delightful French pair content themselves with 
this, but when they left for France the next year 
they freed these two negroes as well as two others 
they had bought. So charming is the scene where 
the four slaves, hardly able to believe that they 
were being given their freedom, cast themselves 
at the feet of their benefactress, that we can well 
believe her words: "Who can describe the deep 
emotions of such a moment. Never in my life 
have I experienced anything so sweet !" Nor did 
it prove easy to carry this act into effect, at least 
in the case of one of them, for the magistrate be- 
fore whom the act of manumission took place 
objected that, being over fifty, the slave could 
not be freed. Fortunately, the negro could display 
his birth certificate, proving that he was only 
forty-nine. 

Two customary features of our rural landscape 
seemed particularly to strike the French, one, the 
use of wooden fences instead of the green hedges 
so universal in Europe, and the other, the open 
and agreeable disposal of the houses in our vil- 
lages, in contrast to the huddling together of 
hovels to which their eyes were accustomed at 
home. They freely expressed their opinion that 
we would soon take to hedges and give up the 
less picturesque fences! As one of the reasons 
therefor Brissot alleges that "it is impossible that 
[ 200 ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

these fences should be cheaper than hedges when 
away from cities and more in the woods. It is cal- 
culated that a negro can hew one hundred and 
thirty to one hundred and fifty rails of wood in 
a day." Bonnet thought it just as well that we 
continue for a while to use open rail fences instead 
of hedges, because the latter in a recently cleared 
country would necessarily harbor snakes. 

As to the arrangement of our country towns, 
Beaujour says : " The towns and villages are built 
as in England along a single street, with but two 
rows of houses. These houses generally stand 
apart, so that an accidental fire cannot be com- 
municated from one to the other. They ordinarily 
form one long street, backed on both sides with 
gardens and fields. This manner of building vil- 
lages is preferable to that commonly employed 
in Europe, where the houses, huddled together, 
provide all the inconveniences of cities without 
any of the agreeable features of country fife." 
Even those who dwelt in the cities, says Beaujour, 
wished them to resemble what was to be enjoyed 
outside: "American cities are not beautiful and 
sumptuous hke those of Europe, but they have 
more space, and almost all have trees and gardens 
throughout, which lends them the appearance 
and the pleasures of the country. Sometimes the 
houses do not adjoin, but form groups as in some 
of our hamlets." 

[201 ] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

When Lafayette marched his command of two 
thousand Continental troops along the shores of 
Long Island Sound, they passed "through a 
smiling country covered with villages, where the 
equality of the people indicated a perfect democ- 
racy." The French seemed impressed with the 
fact that country life had quite a different effect 
in America from that in Europe. The isolation 
of the farms and country places appeared, in this 
new land, rather to have benefited the manners 
and morals than to have had the opposite effect, 
so usual in the Old World. Robin says: "These 
farmers, simpler than our peasants, have neither 
the rusticity nor the boorishness of the latter; 
better educated, they have neither their wihness 
nor their dissimulation. Further removed from 
the arts and less industrious, they are less ham- 
pered by ancient custom, and more ingenious in 
perfecting and inventing that which increases their 
comfort." Brissot goes so far as to say: "The 
Americans have pure customs because nine- 
tenths of them live some distance apart in the 
country." Bonnet decided that American farm- 
ers were rich in proportion to the number of chil- 
dren they had — the more children a farmer had, 
the more he could support. 

It was in order to study our people thoroughly 
that Bayard made his journey of one hundred and 
twenty miles on horseback from Baltimore to Bath, 

[ 202 ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

Virginia, a summer resort now well known as the 
Warm Springs: "As I wished really to know the 
American people before going back to my country, 
I concluded (because they were so scattered) that 
beneath rustic roofs, in the isolation of forests, on 
mountain heights I could best lay hold of their 
chEU'acteristic traits, and not in cities where all is 
imitation, where the inhabitants, in constant com- 
munication with Europe, are continually imbued 
with Enghsh prejudices and reveal in their habits 
as in their opinions the marks of chains they had 
the courage to break." 

His is one of the few pictures now accessible of 
fashion amusing itself away from home during the 
hot weather, when life in town was to be avoided 
by those who could afford a change of air. The 
custom of frequenting such resorts was then a new 
one, and life and amusements there were most prim- 
itive; it is true they had a theatre, but it was built 
of logs. That the primitive surroundings in no way 
abated the fixed habits of polite society appears 
from Bayard's account of the due observance there 
of all the elaborate etiquette at that time surround- 
ing tea-drinking ! 

Another custom, likewise then in its infancy, 
and also exemplifying the desire of city people 
for a temporary escape from the restraints of 
urban Hfe, was that of having out-of-town villas 
within easy access of their city residences. 

[203] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

"Most New Yorkers," says Bourgeois, "have 
very pretty houses in the country, some of them 
as far off as thirty miles. They drive out to them 
in smart, hghtly built chaises, drawn by a single 
horse, and one can enjoy the pleasure of shoot- 
ing from them without alighting, for the land is 
not hiUy." 



[204] 



CHAPTER IX 

TRAVEL— ITS CONVENIENCES AND 
INCONVENIENCES 

It seems incredible that any one so cabn-visaged 
as Renjamin Franklin must be held accountable 
for the electrical speeding-up both of modern 
travel and the transmission of news ! Here we 
are, author and reader, trying to translate our- 
selves back into the days of that remarkable 
American, and yet it was his trifling with thun- 
derbolts and kites that is going to make it so 
difficult for us to forget the aeroplanes and ocean 
greyhounds of to-day, and to adjust our minds to 
the forms of travelhng found by the French in 
our country during the days when our indepen- 
dence was gained. We know that General Ro- 
chambeau encouraged his officers to travel widely 
in order to keep him well informed. Let us ac- 
company them, not forgetting, however, that the 
day of modern conveniences was still far distant. 
WTiat shall we find was the state of affairs then 
confronting those about to set out on a journey ? 
All sorts of methods and every kind of convey- 
ance were used by our authors. In the beginning 
[2o5] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

they tell us chiefly of travel on horseback (which 
they found expensive), and that almost nobody 
employed the customary European system of hir- 
ing post-horses. This helps us to understand why 
de Kalb says in a letter of June 18, 1777, that 
"immense sums were necessary to travel three 
hundred leagues by land with all my baggage, 
for the hiring of horses and carriages." Per 
contra, we find several accounts of how cheaply 
one could travel in stage-coaches, the usual method 
of getting from place to place. Brissot writes in 
August, 1788, of the journey from Boston to 
New York: "The distance which separates these 
two cities is about two hundred and sixty miles. 
Several individuals have joined together to set 
up a public stage-service to transport travellers 
at regular intervals from one city to the other. 
Stages are changed several times on the road, and 
the trip lasts four days in summer but the trav- 
ellers are obliged to set out at four o'clock in the 
morning. Each day they do from sixty to sixty- 
six miles. The charge is three cents a mile, 
Massachusetts money; baggage also pays three 
cents a mile exceeding fourteen pounds, which 
amount is carried gratuitously. We started out 
from Boston at four o'clock in the morning in a 
coach which held six, hung on springs." The 
pleasantest of all the methods of locomotion as 
well as the cheapest, was, as might be expected, 
[206] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

happened upon by Chastellux, who enjoyed not 
only the admirable trait of getting the best out 
of life wherever he went, but also (happily for us) 
that of recording it divertingly. Near Albany he 
took a couple of sleighs which belonged to the 
State, furnished to him by the Quartermaster- 
General, "an excellent man named Quakerbush. 
My intention was to pay for them but he would 
not consent to it, assuring me that it would be 
enough if I turned them over to the Quartermaster 
of Rhode Island, who would send them back 
when opportunity served. There still exists a 
very comfortable arrangement for military men 
and those in the public service — each State main- 
tains relays of horses for them to use in travelling, 
only requiring that the latter shall be turned over 
to the Quartermaster of the place where one fui- 
ishes using them. In the northern states there 
are also sleighs used for that purpose." 

Brissot both enlightens and entertains us by 
his comparison between our vehicles and those 
of his own country: "Americans have as car- 
riages diligences, coupes, phaetons, sulkies (with 
one seat), cabriolets with places for two — all ex- 
cellent vehicles, with light wheels, good springs 
and costing half as much as ours. Frenchmen 
who go to America often take their carriages with 
them, for they think they are going to land in a 
savage country ! Crevecoeur told me that he 
[207] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

saw one of our gentlefolk land 'with one of thosef 
heavy postchaises formerly so much in vogue. 
It excited great surprise among the Americans, 
who could not believe that such a thing came from 
a civihzed land. The French Consul, for the 
honor of the country, hastened to hide it away 
in a livery stable.' " 

Concerning the nature of the roads which, at 
that time, connected the different parts of the 
country, there is some conflict of testimony, but 
although Beaujour and one or two others were 
incUned to be rather severe in their criticisms, the 
majority of the testimony is commendatory. 
Mandrillon goes so far as to say that they "are 
finer than those in most of the countries of 
Europe." Segur is more specific: "The road 
which I was following was wide, very well laid, 
and carefully kept up; every place where I stopped 
the people received me with courtesy, and hast- 
ened to get horses for both me and my guide." 
He significantly comments upon the road between 
Newport and New London, that "it was the first 
bad road that I had met in the United States." 
Minister Fauchet was so unkind as to report to 
his government, March 21, 1794, that on his way 
from Baltimore "to reach Philadelphia we had 
to travel by roads which were almost impassable; 
it was only after much effort and fatigue that we 
were able to arrive in that city." The impartial 
[208] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

du Bourg found the Virginia roads "really very 
fine," although he complains of those in Maryland. 
Our highways must have been fairly good or Baron 
Closen would hardly have been able to ride nine 
hundred and eighty miles (carrying a message 
from Rochambeau in Williamsburg, Virginia, to 
Congress in Philadelphia, and back) in less than 
nine days. It is from La Rochefoucauld that we 
shall obtain an explanation for the comparative 
excellence of the roads: "The roads are good be- 
cause the soil is of such a nature as to make them 
so. With the exception of that at Lancaster on 
which they are at present working, road-making 
as an art has had httle to do with the Pennsyl- 
vania roads." Bonnet, viewing our roads from 
another angle, beheves they Eire good, not only 
because the ground is properly prepared, but also 
because they are relieved from the heavier traffic, 
which is diverted to the canals and rivers. 

Turning from generalities to that most impor- 
tant particularity, the stage-coach driver. Bayard 
gives us a very lifehke picture: "An American 
stage-coach driver is a sort of a magistrate who 
passes on all kinds of questions. He takes part 
in the general conversation of the travellers, and 
often conducts it. It is very rarely that one re- 
monstrates with him, even in the humblest way, 
upon liis manner of driving. If debates arise 
upon the length of the road, upon whether or not 
[209] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

it is comfortable, upon horse-flesh or the lineage 
thereof, upon the private fortunes of gentlemen 
whose houses are along the road, he is consulted 
and hstened to with much deference." The same 
writer remeo'ks, that when Americans travel they 
do not carry about with them dozens of shirts 
like the French, but, while it is true that they 
carry but few, they are of fine linen and always 
beautifully washed; they do not admire the 
French custom of filling up a wardrobe with 
shirts which become full of damp, and whose 
number is but a proof of extravagance. In this 
connection it is comforting to learn from Brissot 
that American washerwomen were expeditious, 
which must have been of peculiar importance to 
the traveller with but few shirts. They charged 
three and a half or four shilhngs for washing a 
dozen pieces. He has already told us that bag- 
gage exceeding fourteen pounds had to be paid for 
extra, wliich perhaps explains the limited quantity 
to which Americans accustomed themselves. 

Turning from travel by land to that by water, 
we will let Brissot "say a word on the packet- 
boats of America and the advantages which they 
offer: although in my opinion it would be more ad- 
vantageous and even cheaper to select the land 
journey, still I must praise the cleanliness and 
order which reigns in these packets. The cabin 
of the one upon which I travelled contained 
[210] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

fourteen beds in two tiers, one above the other. 
Each had its own httle window. The room was 
well ventilated so that one did not breathe that 
disgusting air which contaminates the packets 
on the channel. They were freshly varnished. 
The captain, two men, and a negro cook formed 
the entire crew. The table was good. There is 
not a town along this coast which has not packets 
of this sort, plying to New York as well as to 
New Haven and New London and all are equally 
clean and offer the same comforts to travellers. 
You can be sure that there is nothing like it in 
the Old World." Nor was traveUing by coastwise 
packets Hmited to short distances, for Michaux 
(junior) says they ran at frequent intervals be- 
between Charleston and New York, a trip which 
generally took ten days, and cost from forty to 
fifty dollars: "Some of these boats have rooms 
tastefully arranged and comfortably disposed for 
passengers who every year go north in large num- 
bers to avoid the sickly season, returning to 
Charleston in November." It took his father from 
the 16th till the 27th of July for his journey 
aboard one of these packets from Charleston to 
Philadelphia. From St. Mery we learn that the 
American saihng ships which carried passengers 
from Europe were considered very satisfactory 
and, to judge from the detailed menus which he 
gives us of various repasts on board, they must 

[211] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

have lived very well. He found the American 
sailors sensible folk, but remarks that they were 
great behevers in luck, and did not hke to leave 
port on Saturday. 

It would appear from a number of observa- 
tions throughout their writings that the French 
were not pleased with the American system of 
delivering mails, nor are we surprised when 
Chastellux describes one of the methods employed 
to forward letters to their destination: "Several 
times during the stay of the French army at 
Williamsburg, my letters addressed to Rocham- 
beau were entrusted to travellers, postal arrange- 
ments not being as yet regularly established, and 
Americans often lacking the money to pay mes- 
sengers. The travellers who were not going 
straight to Wilhamsburg generally deposited these 
letters in some inn at the cross-roads, leaving 
word that the first chance should be taken to 
send them on to their address, but it often hap- 
pened that they remained for months together on 
a mantelpiece without anyone having thought of 
forwarding them, although the opportunity had 
often arisen. Finally, some honest traveller espied 
them and took charge of them out of good will, 
and without anyone asking him to do so."/ 

As compensating for delays of this sort just de- 
scribed, there seems to have been an entire absence 
of the temporary but annoying ones caused by high- 
[212] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

waymen, then so prevalent in different parts of 
Europe. Travellers were relieved from those ex- 
pensive dangers of the road, although it appears 
from Brissot that they had not all learned of this 
fact in advance: "I travelled with a Frenchman 
who, thinking that he had much to fear in a wild 
country, had provided himself with pistols. The 
Americans laughed at this precaution and ad- 
vised him to put them in his trunk. He had the 
good sense to believe them." Nor was this his 
only comment on the safety of our highways: 
"On the road in Connecticut you will often find 
pretty girls alone either driving a cabriolet or 
on horseback galloping hard, with a smart hat 
on their heads, a white apron, and a dress of col- 
ored stuff; examples which prove at the same 
time their precociousness (since, although young, 
they are left to themselves), the security of the 
roads, and the general guilelessness prevailing. 
You will find them risking themselves alone with- 
out protectors in pubhc vehicles; I was wrong to 
say risking themselves — who could offend them? 
They are there under the protection of public 
manners and their own innocence." Even the 
presence of Indians in the settled parts of the 
country meant no danger to women, but it was 
difficult to convince foreigners of this fact. Mon- 
sieur Novion, while riding in northern New York 
with the Marquise de la Tour du Pin, was dis- 

[2l3] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

tressed at the risk she ran by conversing with a 
tall Indian whose costume consisted of a blue 
loin-cloth. When he expressed his horror at the 
danger incurred by residing in such a country, 
she vouchsafed him the feminine reply that not 
only was she not afraid of this Indian, an old 
acquaintance of hers, but also "if I had told him 
to throw his tomahawk at you, to protect me, 
he would have done it!" "On our return he 
confided to my husband that I had strange friends, 
and that he had decided to go and live in New 
York City, where civihzation seemed further ad- 
vanced!" 

Before the Revolution took place little atten- 
tion had of necessity been paid to intercommuni- 
cation between the different colonies, but we 
gather from Brissot that this at once began to 
improve when the colonies united to obtain their 
independence, for then they promptly realized how 
vital was such intercourse. As the country came 
to be more and more settled, roads were pushed 
out in every direction. Washington writes to 
Lafayette from Mount Vernon, July 25, 1785: 
"Roads are being prepared and the route will be 
made easy [to the fertile plains of Ohio], by the 
waters of the Potomac and the James Rivers, 
and, a propos of these navigable streams, I will 
tell you that I have the satisfaction of seeing that 
the subscriptions, particularly for the Potomac, 

[ 2l4 ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

surpass our greatest hopes. This plan of naviga- 
tion if it succeeds, will improve the relations be- 
tween the States bordering on the Atlantic and 
all the Western territory, and will produce great 
commercial and political results. This last point 
is the spur to all my efforts, for great evils would 
result from the separation which would inevita- 
bly take place if the difficulties of this communi- 
cation were not removed by the time the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi is opened to us." 

Among the various Frenchmen who travelled 
out into this new western and southern country 
were two expressly commissioned to report thereon 
to their government, Minister Genet sending 
Michaux (the elder), and Minister Adet General 
Collot. Genet, desirous of making investigations 
in Louisiana, wrote home, July 25, 1793: "I hast- 
ened to select an agent fit to conduct our negotia- 
tions on the ground. I cast my eyes on Citizen 
Michaux, botanist of the Jardin National, who is 
about to undertake a journey to the southern sea 
to enrich his native land with new discoveries. 
Citizen Michaux is in every respect an estimable 
man, enjoying great distinction here; he speaks 
English and also knows both the idiom and cus- 
toms of the Indian tribes. He is therefore the 
very man I would select, especially since, as he 
is accustomed to travelling in the American back- 
woods, his departure could not arouse any suspi- 

[2l5] 



FRENCH IVIEMORIES OF 

cion"; so off Michaux went to "Kentuckey" and 
the Mississippi. On June 21, 1796, Minister Adet 
wrote to Paris: "I have instructed General Col- 
lot to travel throughout all the country to the 
west of the AUeghanys, watered by the Ohio 
and Mississippi; to take detailed notes upon the 
character and opinion of the inhabitants, as to 
population, its annual increase, what its com- 
merce amounts to, and what it ought to be. 
Besides, I have instructed him to reconnoitre all 
military points on the Ohio and Mississippi 
rivers, and to draw plans of places whose loca- 
tion it might be interesting to know." We sus- 
pect that neither Genet nor Adet found the re- 
ports of Michaux or Collet so useful for liis political 
purposes as they have proved for our literary one. 
Certainly in the case of Michaux, politics was 
ever secondary to botany. Indeed, he was only 
about Genet's business from July 15, 1793, until 
December 13 of the same year, which was but a 
small portion of the eleven years during which 
he botanized from the West Indies as far north 
as Hudson's Bay. 

An agreeable as well as instructive description 
of a day spent in an American stage-coach comes 
from Brissot. Let us invite, nay, recommend, 
our reader to seat himself next that interesting 
Frenchman, for thus, at his ease, will he see eye to 
eye with the Frenchman, regaling himself betimes 

[2l6] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

with the sage observations of that shrewd ob- 
server: "I left New York August 25, 1788, at 
six o'clock in the morning. I had engaged a 
place in the dihgence called the New Line of 
Stages to Philadelphia. It starts every day ex- 
cept Sunday, both from Philadelphia and New 
York, two stages from each place, one bringing 
you to your destination during the day and the 
other taking a day and a half. You change 
coaches seven or eight times on the way. Before 
reaching the coach it was necessary to cross the 
North River in an open boat. There are four 
ferries on the way from New York to Philadelphia, 
besides this crossing of the North River. There 
is no doubt that sooner or later bridges will re- 
place these ferry-boats, which are often danger- 
ous. One lands at Paulus-Hook and finds the 
stagecoach waiting. They say the crossing is 
two miles long; it costs six cents in New York 
money. The stagecoach has four wheels and is 
an open vehicle whose sides have double curtains 
of leather and cloth which let down when it rains 
or when the sun proves annoying, and which can 
be raised when you wish to enjoy the air and the 
view of the country. These vehicles are badly 
hung but, the road over which they run being of 
sand and gravel, one suffers no discomfort. The 
horses are good, and fast enough. The coaches 
have four seats and hold a dozen people. Light 
[217] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

luggage is put under one's feet, and trunks are 
fastened on behind, but you are not permitted to 
have too many. This is the only way of travel- 
hng, nor is it a bad one. There is no hiring of 
private postchaises and horses, which is just as 
well. Such individuals as do not care to take 
the stage have a cabriolet with one horse. I wish 
the French who have travelled in these stages 
would compare them with those of France, — 
those heavy diligences into which eight or ten 
people are stuffed, or with those cabriolets around 
Paris where people, packed together, are deprived 
of air by the dirty driver who makes a horrid 
noise; — with those miserable chaises dragged along 
by two horses, where one is in a slanting position, 
annoying and annoyed, and where one breathes 
poisoned air — all these vehicles, although they 
run over beautiful roads, make only a league an 
hour. Ah ! if the Americans had the same kind 
of roads, with what speed would they not travel, 
since, in spite of the poorness of their roads, one 
completes during the day the ninety-six miles 
(or thirty-two leagues) which separate New York 
and Philadelphia. So it is that after only a cen- 
tury and a half, and in spite of a thousand ob- 
stacles Americans are already superior to nations 
which have existed fifteen centuries. There are 
to be found in these stages men of every profes- 
sion. They succeed one another with great rapid- 
[218] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

ity; one who is only going fifteen miles gives up 
his place to a traveller who is going further, — a 
mother comes into the stage with her daughter to 
go to dinner ten miles away, whence she will be 
brought back by another stage; there are, there- 
fore, constantly new acquaintances to be made. 
The frequency of these vehicles, the ease of get- 
ting seats even for a short distance, the fixed 
prices (and that too, low) one and all prove an 
invitation to Americans to travel. The price is 
three cents a mile. These stages possess the pe- 
culiar advantage of disseminating the idea of 
equality. A Member of Congress is seated be- 
side a laborer who voted for him and they talk 
together with perfect famiharity. You do not 
see people putting on airs, which you find so 
often in France, where a man of the world would 
blush to travel in so unworthy a vehicle as 
a public dihgence. Private carriages humiliate 
those unable to afford them; therefore, it is well 
for America that the nature of things prevents 
this distinction between private and public ve- 
hicles. The ordinary man — that is to say an 
artisan or workman, who finds himself in these 
stages with a distinguished citizen, keeps quiet, 
or tries, if he takes part in the conversation, to 
rise to the level of the other, — at least he learns 
something. The man of distinction, for the same 
reason, has less pride and learns more of the true 
[219] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

sentiments of the people. I travelled all through 
New Jersey in a coach of this kind with the son 
of Governor Livingstone. I would not have 
known it (so unostentatious and plain was his 
appearance) if, from time to time, the innkeepers 
at the stops had not saluted him with an air of 
respectful familiarity. They told me that the 
Governor himself often availed himself of these 
stages. You will have an idea of this respected 
man who, at the same time, wrote, governed, and 
labored, when you learn that he did himself the 
honor of being called 'The Jersey Farmer.' The 
advantages afforded by these stagecoaches cause 
women to make use of them. They are often 
alone and unaccompanied by friends, but they 
have nothing to fear from insolence or from the 
questionable and sometimes loose conversation of 
young men — a sort of talk which is, unfortunately, 
too common in French and English stagecoaches. 
This association of men and w^omen while travelling 
cannot but maintain purity of manners, and prove 
that they are respected; if they were not, women 
would keep away. I have heard Frenchmen find 
fault with the frequent change of coaches, but 
this custom is reasonable and has advantages. 
In the first place, the drivers are also changed, 
for they live in different towns along the road, 
and arrange among themselves to furnish the 
horses and coaches. A New Yorker drives the 

[ 220 ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

coach as far as Newark, and an inhabitant thereof 
takes it on to Ehzabethtown. Often it is the 
owner of the coach who drives, sometimes he has 
it driven by a servant. He is sure, therefore, 
that his horses will not be worn out with fatigue, 
and that his coach will be properly kept up, 
which would not be the case if the drivers were 
strangers. The same horses and coach take back 
travellers who are on the return trip, and this 
arrangement enables the stage-owners to make a 
low charge. It would cost me about tln-ee times 
as much to travel in France, besides the petty 
vexations of paying postillions, which is unknown 
here. It is true that the coaches do not carry 
heavy luggage but this is not so bad, for trav- 
ellers take only what is necessary, that is to say, 
a small piece of hand-luggage. They are, there- 
fore, forced to be simple, and while travelling do 
not load themselves like Europeans with a lot of 
troublesome necessities. An American travels 
with his comb and his razor, a couple of shirts, 
and some cravats." 

Almost all the French travellers express sur- 
prise that innkeepers in America were generally 
men of substance and of importance in the com- 
munity, frequently being retired army officers, 
sometimes of high rank, and far different from 
the low fellows who kept inns in Europe. Chas- 
tellux tells of an inn called "Morehouse Tavern," 
[221] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

whose landlord was a colonel, and Segur confesses 
that "I was somewhat surprised upon cntermg a 
tavern to find that it was kept by a Captain, a 
Major, or a Colonel, who conversed equally well 
on his campaigns against the English, upon the 
cultivation of his land, the sale of his products, 
or his income. I was still more astonished when, 
having repHed to some questions concerning my 
family and having told them that my father was 
a General and a Cabinet Minister, to have them 
ask what was his other profession or business. 
I always found in inns clean rooms, tables well 
served (abundant but wholesome and simple), 
drinks a trifle too strong, rum, or cinnamon tea, 
weak coffee, and excellent tea." 

From Cromot du Bourg we learn that not only 
were our innkeepers occasionally former army offi- 
cers, but also that some of them were in the learned 
professions. Chastellux says: "Mr. Poops took 
me to Mr. Smith's inn; this Mr. Smith was both 
innkeeper and lawyer. He had quite a pretty 
library, and his son, whom Mr. Poops presented 
to me upon my arrival, appeared a well-educated 
and well-mannered youth. I begged him to dine 
with us, as well as another young man who was 
lodged there. This latter had come from the 
island of Dominique, where he was born, to finish 
his studies among the Americans, to whom he 
seemed much more attached than to the English. 

[ 222 1 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

He had chosen Easton as healthier and more 
peaceful than the other towns of America, and 
he found in Mr. Smith's lessons and books all 
the instruction that he could desire." 

Brissot, the pliilosophical, perceives good reasons 
for the importance in the community enjoyed by 
those who kept the inns: "An innkeeper is natur- 
ally respected in a country where money is scarce, 
because he receives more of it than other people. 
Money has at its command the necessities of life 
and — as a result — means a good bed, good things 
to eat, attentive servants, and yet one does not 
give tips in the inns nor to the drivers of stage- 
coaches, which is an excellent plan. Beside the 
fact that this tipping becomes insupportable be- 
cause of the persecution it causes, it also gives 
men an air of baseness, and accustoms them to 
servile cupidity." Bayard says that "we were 
lodged with Madame Throkmorton, a relative of 
General Washington. Board cost three dollars 
a week. This good American lady, because of 
carelessness uncommon among those who keep 
boarding houses, made rather a mess of her affairs. 
Madame Throkmorton had about forty boarders, 
for whom she set an excellent table." We also 
find a unanimity of opinion upon the cleanliness 
everywhere observable in the inns. From Bris- 
sot we learn: "We never stopped at a tavern with- 
out finding everywhere cleanliness, decency, and 

[223] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

dignity. The table is often served by a modest 
and pretty young lady, by an amiable mother 
whose pleasant face has not been affected by age, 
and who still preserves her freshness; by men 
with that air of dignity which equality gives, and 
who are neither ignoble nor low like most of our 
innkeepers." 

The Frenchmen never overcame their surprise 
at the lack of distinction of caste between the 
host and the customers of an inn; even unaristo- 
cratic Brissot noticed that "the innkeeper (Mrs. 
Robinson) was taking tea with her maids; she 
invited us to join her and we accepted. We have 
nothing, and I repeat it, which is comparable to 
this in France. The maids in the inns are dressed 
very neatly and have a modest and honest ap- 
pearance, and this remark may be made in every 
part of the United States." From the exiled 
aristocrat, the Due de La Rochefoucauld, we have: 
"It appeared strange to Europeans to see the 
mistresses of inns and their housemaids (who 
served the dinner and breakfast) sit down while 
waiting till you ask them for a plate; and that 
the innkeeper attended to your wants at table 
with his hat on his head, — but in America the 
innkeeper is often a Captain or a Major. I have 
seen stagecoach drivers who were Colonels, so 
simple is life in America." From Lafayette we 
have something to the same effect: "These things 
[22/i] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AI^IERICA 

are very different from Europe. The master and 
the mistress sit down at table with you, do the 
honors of an excellent repast, and when you 
leave, you pay without bargaining. When you 
do not want to go to an inn, you find country- 
houses where the fact that you are a good Ameri- 
can causes you to be received with the atten- 
tions which you would have in Europe from a 
friend." 

It is Chastellux that sets out most in detail this 
un-European system of paid hospitality, generally 
to be found in such towns as lacked inns: "The 
place where I was to stop was Farmington. Mr. 
Wadsworth, fearing that I would not find a good 
inn there, gave me a letter of introduction to one 
of his relatives named Lewis; he assured me that 
I would be well received without inconvenienc- 
ing anybody, and need not be embarrassed be- 
cause I would pay just as if at an inn; and it was 
true, for when the inns are bad or the distances 
between them do not conform with the days' 
journeys which one plans to make, it is the cus- 
tom in America to ask hospitahty from some pri- 
vate individual who has room for you in his 
house, and for your horses in his stable. In this 
way one converses with one's host as an equal, 
but pays him as though he were only an inn- 
keeper." He comments again upon this custom: 
"We left there about noon in order to go on 

[225] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

twenty-four miles to the only house where we 
could find a comfortable place. It was not an 
inn, but the proprietor, Mr. Hunter, was glad to 
receive strangers. This difference between a real 
inn and paid hospitality is to the financial advan- 
tage of foreigners, because in America, as in Eng- 
land, innkeepers pay high taxes, and they reim- 
burse themselves by exorbitant charges. Mr. 
Hunter received us very well and in a very clean 
house." Du Bourg tells us that at Mr. Wacker's 
house near Baltimore, " they gave us an excellent 
supper and excellent beds, our servants and horses 
were well treated, and when it came time to pay, 
he refused to accept more than five shillings." Nor 
was there any danger of travellers faring badly at 
these private houses, for "the Americans live well," 
says Brissot, "and treat strangers as they treat 
themselves." 

Perrin du Lac was the only one to make any 
reference to the keeping of a register of guests. 
"One day in Newark," says he, "the landlord 
showed us a thick book in which it was the cus- 
tom to inscribe the names of strangers, at the 
head of which we read those of Washington and 
his wife. Some had added phrases expressing 
their impressions of this picturesque place. The 
French ones had the distinctive character of their 
nation — love of pleasure and of women; the Eng- 
lish were profound or libertine, but the Americans 
[226] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

were content to write their names without add- 
ing anything thereto." 

These writers do not seem unanimous upon the 
question of expense at American taverns. De Kalb 
writes, June 18, 1777: "Food, lodgings, horses — 
everything is extremely high." Brissot says: "We 
dined at the tavern at Cambridge. I never paid so 
dearly for a dinner — about ten shilUngs or eight 
French livres for beef, two chickens, a half bottle 
of madeira, a pot of porter, and two cups of coffee. 
The coffee alone cost us a shilling. It would be 
unfair not to give the reason for this dearness; — 
Cambridge is a university town and much fre- 
quented." On the other hand, while going from 
New York to Philadelphia Michaux (junior) paid 
at the taverns where the coach stopped "a piastre 
for dinner, a half of that for supper or breakfast, 
and the same for lodging." Surely not exorbi- 
tant prices ! Brissot also shows us that reason- 
able arrangements could be made: " Board by the 
week — and almost all the strangers and Members of 
Congress are in boarding-houses — was four or five 
dollars, which is thirty-one to forty-two hvres, and 
one paid extra for French wine." Michaux (junior) 
remarks that "boarding houses in New York 
charge 8 to 12 piastres a week. Living is cheaper 
there than in Charleston," where they charge "12 
to 20 piastres a week." In Philadelphia he found 
the prices even lower, paying only 6 to 10 piastres 
[227] 



FRENXH MEMORIES OF 

a week, but La Rochefoucauld records Ihem as "8 
to 12, without wine, hghts, or a fire in your bed- 
room." Deux-Ponts noticed that board cost about 
twice as much per week in Philadelphia and the 
other larger cities near the seaboard as in the 
towns of the interior. 

There is one point, however, upon which the 
foreigners are all quite decided in their criticism, 
nor will you blame them when you hear from 
St. Mery that he "protested against the Ameri- 
can custom prevalent in all hotels of putting an- 
other man into the bed in which you were sleep- 
ing." Michaux (junior) says: "There were always 
several beds in each sleeping room," and he reports 
that at Mr. Patrick Archibald's near Pittsburgh 
there were four beds in one room to acconamodate 
the ten members of his family, plus any passing 
strangers who might wish to spend the night! 
No wonder the French thought us an easy-going 
and harmonious people ! La Rochefoucauld says of 
Bath, New York : " Although we slept in the tavern 
we passed almost all our days in the Captain's 
house where we were quieter than in that noisy 
inn, no bigger than your hand, and so full of 
people that one night we slept twenty-five in two 
rooms and six beds, and these rooms were only 
little garrets open to the wind and the rain." 
This must have been a singularly distressing cus- 
tom, and it is not surprising that even the imper- 
[228] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

turbable Segur says that he found it difficult to 
accustom himself thereto. Prince de Broghe 
gratefully records: "I had so great an aversion 
to sleeping in company that I was accorded the 
favor of not being waked up during the night by 
some unknown newcomer." The Marquise de la 
Tour du Pin was awakened at Lebanon, New 
York, by a volley of French oaths from an ad- 
joining room. Next morning her husband's friend 
Monsieur Chambeau, told her that "about mid- 
night he had been aroused by a man who with- 
out more ado had slipped into the empty haK of 
his bed. Furious at this invasion, he promptly 
jumped out the other side and passed the night 
in a chair listening to the snores of his com- 
panion, who seemed in no wise disturbed by his 
anger." 

St. Mery praises the watchmen who, in Phila- 
delphia, called out the hours from 10 p. m. to 5 
A. M., and comments upon how pleasant it is to 
lie in a warm bed and hear the watchmen shout 
that it is snowing outside ! We can hardly agree 
with him when he adds: "They also possess a 
pecuhar value for travellers because they arouse 
them at any hour desired so that they may set 
out upon their journey betimes." Yes, but how 
about the interrupted slumber of the rest of the 
street ? 

In closing, and by way of realizing how much 
[229] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

better our ancestors fared while on a journey 
than any one then travelHng in Europe, Brissot's 
conclusions are illuminating: "We reached the 
first inn at Spenser, a growing village in the midst 
of the woods; thus far there are only three or 
four houses to be seen. The inn was only half 
built, but the completed portion had that air of 
cleanliness which pleases because it announces 
comfort and those simple and refined customs of 
which there is not even a suspicion in our villages. 
The rooms were clean, the beds good, the linen 
white, the supper passable; cider, tea, punch, all 
that for a shilling and a half or two shillings a 
head; we were four. Now, my friend, compare 
this order of tilings with that which you have 
encountered a hundred times in our French inns; 
dirty ugly rooms, beds full of bugs (those insects 
which Sterne called 'the legitimate inhabitants of 
inns, always supposing,' said he, 'that a long pos- 
session gives a legal right'), linen badly bleached 
and giving out an unpleasant odor, evil coverlids, 
wine ahnost always spoiled, and all this for its 
weight in gold; rapacious servants, disagreeable 
except when their hopes are aroused by your style 
of travelling, rushing toward a rich arrival but 
insolent toward one whom they consider of small 
importance; — there you have the eternal tor- 
ments which attend travellers in France, — add to 
those the fear of being robbed, and the precau- 
l23o] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

tions which one must take every night to prevent 
theft, while throughout the United States you 
travel without fear and unharmed, and, even 
deep in the forests, you repose tranquilly in open 
rooms or houses with unlocked doors. Now 
judge which is the country that deserves the name 
of civilized, and which one offers the aspect of 
general happiness ! Cleanliness you know, my 
friend, is happiness, and this is why you find it 
everywhere among the Americans, even down to 
the smallest details." 



[23l] 



CHAPTER X 

EDUCATION, COLLEGES, NEWSPAPERS, 
INTEREST IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS 

Suppose that some French traveller, who spoke 
no English, should find himself in the Grand 
Central Station, New York City, with no inter- 
preter at hand, and suppose he tried, by speaking 
Latin, to make himself understood by some one 
of the passing throng — how long do you suppose 
he would have to wait to accomplish his purpose ? 
It makes one hungry and thirsty and sleepy to 
think upon the hours and the endurance such a 
task would necessitate ! And would this not be 
equally true in any part of the United States ex- 
cept in certain learned university circles? Yet 
during Revolutionary times the ability to speak 
Latin was not uncommon among our educated 
classes. Blanchard, quartermaster of the French 
forces, tells of a trip to a garden two miles out of 
Providence with General Varnum, commander of 
the local militia, to play at bowls, and inciden- 
tally to partake of punch and tea; although he 
knew only a few words of English, he got on 
famously, because " General Varnum spoke Latin." 
[282] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

On another occasion a hussar who spoke Latin 
acted as his interpreter while purchasing sup- 
pHes. Nor were incidents of that nature reported 
only by this erudite quartermaster, whose inter- 
esting narrative shows his enthusiasm for things 
American tempered only by his disgust at Ameri- 
can bread, and the constant difficulty of procur- 
ing sufficient for Rochambeau's troops, even on 
one occasion bringing down on his perplexed head 
the wrath of that exacting commander. Times 
have changed, and that many of our college-bred 
folk could then converse in Latin may or may 
not have been a fine thing, depending on one's 
point of view. But there can be no difference of 
opinion as to the wide enjoyment of a common- 
school education by the contemporaries of those 
esirly hnguists, which was then as surprising to 
foreigners as is to us the facility in Latin speech 
just cited. St. Mery was only one of many to 
be Eimazed that "everybody in the United States ''^^ 
can read and write, although almost no French 
sailor is able to do so," and Michaux agrees that 
"it is very rare to find an American who does not j 

know how both to read and to write." Even the / 

ever-critical Beaujour admits that "primary in- 
struction is widely spread in the different States, 
and especially in those along the Atlantic, where 
almost everyone knows how to read, write, and 
figure." Dupont believed that "paternal tender- 
[233] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

ness, by not setting children to work in the fields 
till very late, is the reason for the general spread 
of education." Bonnet was much struck by the 
fact that, not content with schools like those in 
Europe, "in several places they have also estab- 
lished night schools for such young people as have 
to work during the day." 

The acquisition in youth of this general boon 
was apt to be a painful and somewhat harrowing 
experience, if Bayard is to be believed : "The school- 
masters employ a system better suited for training 
slaves than forming citizens. An English or Ameri- 
can school-teacher is the most dreary and pedantic 
personage that limited knowledge has ever pro- 
duced. Dr. Benjamin Rush has in vain recom- 
mended the humane methods of J. J. Rousseau. 
The pedants have unanimously rejected them, and 
continue to purchase a very modest amount of in- 
formation with blows of the whip. Their chief 
argument in favor of that method is that otherwise 
their dignity might be compromised by the pranks 
of a bright and hvely child, — that the discipline of 
their school runs this terrible risk. ' But you should 
dismiss the insubordinate,' you answer them. 
*A detestable plan,' replies the vendor of knowl- 
edge, * there goes my pay for a whole quarter right 
out of my pocket ! It is better to whip scholars 
than to let them go.' The unfortunates who toil 
under the direction of these pedants soon lose 
[234] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

that sweetness of character which they took to 
school, and you see them emerging from their 
tortm-e-chamber tormenting and beating each 
other." As bahn for om* aroused sympathies, 
and an antidote against a too-confiding behef in 
youthful torture as depicted by Bayard, it is re- 
freshing to read of Blanchard's experience, who, 
a few days after his landing, visited a school in 
Newport, and remarking upon the handwriting 
of a little girl of nine years, whose beauty and 
modesty he admired, and whose name (Abigale 
Earl) he kept, puts down in his journal: "She 
is what I would like to see my little girl when she 
reaches her age," and he writes in her copybook 
at the end of the little girl's name, "very pretty." 
"The schoolmaster," he added, "had neither the 
air of a pedant nor of a missionary, but of a father 
of a family." 

Our system of co-education of young children 
was a novelty to the Frenchmen. Says Perrin 
du Lac: "What a difference between their sys- 
tem of education and ours! With us, from the 
tenderest years, the httle girls are separated from 
the httle boys, and kept under the eye of their 
mothers or governesses. Here, the two sexes are 
continually thrown together throughout their 
childhood, go to the same schools and are taught 
alike. When their public education is finished 
at the age of twelve or thirteen, the girls lose 
[235] 



FRENCH ]VIEMORIES OF 

none of the freedom enjoyed in cliildhood. Their 
school-friends, or those made elsewhere, visit 
them freely whether or not their parents are 
present." 

It was a sore trial to several of the Frenchmen 
that we did not promptly decide to discard the 
Enghsh language at the same time that we tlirew 
off their authority. Even the wildest optimist 
of them all could not have foreseen a day when 
the fringe of colonies along the Atlantic would 
have grown into a nation with twice the popula- 
tion of the British Isles, thus becoming much the 
largest EngHsh-speaking power, and therefore 
there were then some grounds for the French de- 
sire that we should renounce the language of as 
well as our allegiance to our English foes. But 
which tongue was to be adopted as our national 
language? Here w^as a puzzhng problem. Two 
suggestions then advanced deserve notice, be- 
cause they came from such thoughtful and acute 
observers as Brissot and Chastellux. The former 
holds that nothing abrupt should be attempted, 
as a change in our speech was already commenc- 
ing and would inevitably develop: "They should, 
if possible, seek to obhterate their origin, and re- 
move every trace of it, and since their language 
will always give them the lie, they should make 
such innovations in it as they have attempted in 
their Constitution. What should prevent their 
[236] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

adopting certain terms from the French? The 
Americans are coming nearer to other peoples, 
and they are moving further away from the 
Enghsh. They are developing a language which 
will be theirs alone, and there will be an American 
language." Chastellux, on the other hand, dis- 
cusses a proposition that we should adopt Hebrew 
in its entirety as a substitute for English. If he 
were to return in the flesh and see how numerous 
are the Hebrew signs displayed in New York shop 
windows, he would conclude that the general 
esteem enjoyed by our Hebrew fellow citizens 
must have made the adoption of their language 
a more serious proposal now than it was when he 
wrote of it so flippantly. Neither of those writers 
took so gloomy a view as Beaujour, who, while 
despondently submitting to our continued use of 
Enghsh, regretfully points out that "they will 
never have, or at least not till very late, a htera- 
ture of their own, because they lack a national 
language, and because English hterature will take 
the place of their own!" Shades of Poe and 
Hawthorne, of Bret Harte and Mark Twain ! 

Chastellux has already told us of his astonish- 
ment that Mrs. Meredith, a Philadelphia lady, 
should know as much of French history as he 
himself, but even greater was his surprise when, 
turning from the realms of society to the humbler 
sphere of a pubKc inn, he finds on the parlor 
[287] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

table at Courtheath Tavern, "Milton, Addison, 
Richardson, and several other books of that 
sort," the property of the tavern-keeper's two 
■young sisters, and read by them when not busy 
waiting on travellers! Another ghmpse at the 
education then enjoyed by American women is 
furnished by that distinguished exile, the Due de 
La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who travelled so ex- 
tensively in the United States during 1795, 1796, 
and 1797. He noticed at the house of old General 
Warren that "his wife, of the same age as he, is 
much more interesting in conversation. Contrary 
to the custom of American women, she has been 
busy all her life with all sorts of reading. She 
has even printed one or two successful volumes of 
poetry, and has written a history of the Revolution 
which she had the modesty and good taste not 
to wish pubUshed until after her death. This 
good lady of seventy is amiable and has lost none 
of her activity, nor of her sensibihty, for she still 
mourns a son whom she lost in the War. They 
assured me that the literary occupations of this 
estimable dame have not diverted her attention 
from the duties of housekeeping." These two ex- 
amples, from widely differing social spheres, taken 
together make out an excellent case for the ade- 
quacy of the education of our women, whatever 
their walk in hfe. 
As forecasters of the future, upon anything 
[238] 




Mercy Warren, wife of General Warren. 

From the painting \>y Coplej'. 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

except the generality of a glorious growth for the 
United States, the French were distinctly unsuc- 
cessful — upon any details of the said growth 
they usually guessed wrong: Chesapeake Bay did 
not become our great centre, we did not grow 
steadily more lazy and lymphatic, etc., etc.; one 
successful prophecy by Beaujour anent our ad- 
vance in the mechanical arts therefore deserves 
especigJ attention: "Although the Americans 
have made httle progress in science and the arts, 
they carefully cultivate the more usual branches 
of lecuning, and one may judge from results that 
they have no less aptitude for them than other 
nations. They have very learned men in medi- 
cine and natural history, such as Dr. Rush, Wis- 
tar, Mulilenburg, Michel, Beuton, and some very 
distinguished amateurs of agriculture like Presi- 
dent Jefferson, Chancellor Livingston, and Hum- 
phries. In inventions, they have had Frankhn, 
Rittenhausen, Gould, and they now have Fulton. 
They even pretend that the squaring of the 
circle, attributed to the Englishman, Hadley, is 
the invention of their compatriot, Godfrey. 
While Americans show a marked incUnation for 
science and the mechanical arts, they show less 
for hterature and the fine arts. Nevertheless 
they have had some writers who merit distinc- 
tion such as Ramsay, Franklin, Jefferson, Barlow; 
the latter's poem 'The Colombiad,' although lack- 
[289] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

ing animation and grace, still shows some origi- 
nality, and is full of liberal ideas and generous 
sentiments. One may therefore predict for Ameri- 
cans the greatest success in science and the 
mechanical arts, but not the same successes in the 
fine arts." 

That our colleges were performing a great and 
a patriotic service for the rising generation, and 
therefore for the future of the nation, was the 
unanimous opinion of our observers, who realized 
how potent was their agency for good. Chastel- 
lux, in one of his quaint moods, even goes so far 
as to credit the college of Wilham and Mary with 
a "miracle, that is to say, it made me a Doctor 
of Law!" — an agreeably modest way of saying 
that on May 1, 1782, they presented him with an 
honorary degree. 

Before further consideration of colleges and col- 
lege life, there is a serious admission to make, which 
to some readers will prove a disheartening one, 
viz.: that, except for Brissot's comment that Har- 
vard's "surroundings are charming, open, and ex- 
tensive, with space for the young men's exercise," 
there is absolutely nothing in all these memoirs to 
indicate that athletic sports even existed in Ameri- 
can colleges. What a dreadful exposition of the 
inadequacy of early college life ! ITow much times 
have changed can be seen by reflecting that in 
order to fill the sixty-seven thousand seats of the 

[2/io] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

new stadium at Yale University (locally styled 
"the Bowl") it would, as we have already seen, 
have required more than the combined population 
of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. All that 
the French had to say of college life in those early 
days may not meet with the unqualified approval 
of the modern undergraduate. For instance, such 
ideas as Dupont's, that studies should begin at 5 
A. M. during the summer and at 6 a. m. in winter. 

To the patriotic stand taken by all our colleges 
many glowing tributes are paid, and in these 
encomiums the students share equally with their 
instructors. No finer type of college-bred pa- 
triot can be cited than Captain Nathan Hale, 
Yale, 1773, who died with the glorious regret on 
his lips that he had but one life to give for his 
country. The colleges strove for the cause with 
brain as well as brawn, as appears from more than 
a few appreciations of the excellent poKtical pam- 
phlets of President Stiles of Yale, and other col- 
legians hke hun. They taught with their lives as 
weU as their voices, did these eairly instructors — 
"living books," Chastellux calls them, of a "coun- 
try already so distinguished for academies and 
universities equal to those of the old world." 

Wann approval of the system of removing 
colleges from the influence of large cities is ac- 
corded by Abbe Robin, a chaplain in Rocham- 
beau's army, whose memoirs are of more than 

[24l] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

usual interest, so mellow are his appreciations of 
men and things: "There has been shown us in 
Europe the physical and moral danger of educa- 
tion in large cities. The Bostonians have done 
more, they have prevented it. Their university 
is at Cambridge, four miles from Boston on the 
banks of the River Charles, in a delightful and 
healthy situation." Its site is also approved by 
Brissoi for the same reason: "This university is 
far enough from Boston so that the tumult of 
business does not at all interrupt study. There 
one can give oneself over to that meditation which 
solitude alone permits. It is also sufficiently re- 
moved so that the arrival of strangers and that 
sort of license which is carried on in a commercial 
city (even in a free State) shall have no influence 
upon the habits of the students." Of another in- 
stitution, which had been located in a city, we 
read: "One regrets only that this new academy 
had not been erected far from the city, in some 
rural retreat, where the scholars would have been 
further removed from the tumults of business, 
and the dissipations and pleasures so numerous 
in large cities." Thus wrote J. Hector Saint- John 
de Crevecceur, the most widely read of all these 
French writers, member of learned societies on 
both sides of the Atlantic, friend of Washington 
and Franklin, and for some time French Consul 
at New York. He sold for thirty guineas liis 

[ 2/12 1 




Ezra Stiles, president of Yale. 

From the portrait by Reuben Moulthrop, 1794. 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

famous "Letters from an American Farmer," a 
book that Washington declared would "afford a 
great deal of profitable and amusive information"; 
neither of them foresaw the great vogue it was 
destined to enjoy, both in its English and French 
forms. 

The individual universities and colleges of our 
country ehcited frequent comments and general 
praise from the French. Of Harvard we learn 
from Brissot that "Boston has had the glory of 
giving the first university to America. The 
building in which the students and professors as- 
semble is situated in a superb plain four miles 
from Boston in a place called Cambridge. The 
building is divided into different parts very well 
distributed. As the students, who arrive from 
all over the United States, are numerous, and the 
number is constantly increasing, additions will 
have to be built. The course of study is almost 
the same as at the University of Oxford." He 
gives an account of Mr. "Beaudouin" the presi- 
dent, and of the distinguished professors who as- 
sist him, and then goes on to describe how patri- 
otic is the solemn festival celebrated the third 
Wednesday of July, in honor of learning: "This 
festival which takes place in all the American col- 
leges, but on different days, is called the 'Com- 
mencement.' It is similar to the exercises and 
distribution of prizes in our colleges. It is a 
[2/13] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

day of joy for Boston; almost all the inhabitants, 
with all the government officers, set out for the 
beautiful plain of Cambridge. The most success- 
ful students there display their talent in the pres- 
ence of the public, and receive prizes, and these 
academic exercises, of which patriotic subjects 
form the principal part, end with an entertain- 
ment out of doors at which frankness, gaiety, and 
the most touching fraternity reign." In these 
days of constant increase in the cost of living, it 
is disheartening, not to say exasperating, to read in 
La Rochefoucauld that the Harvard undergradu- 
ates "are subject to the modest tax of sixteen dol- 
lars for each one of the four years that they stay 
there, and six dollars per month pays for their 
food. If after their four years of residence, they 
desire to prolong their study to take degrees, 
they no longer pay the sixteen dollars, but only 
the rent of their rooms." 

Of Yale there are numerous and favorable ac- 
counts. It is comforting to learn that "the young 
students, who are there in great numbers, are sub- 
jected to very wise regulations." La Roche- 
foucauld reports that "there is in New Haven a 
college of an already ancient foundation, where 
they assure you that the instruction is as good as 
in any other of the United States," and Man- 
drillon agrees that in New Haven "the instruc- 
tion of youth is very carefully conducted, and to 

[244] 




TO O 



o 
U 









EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

that end they have founded a college which is 
largely attended." That same city so highly ap- 
preciated the value of the services the French 
were rendering our country, not only by their 
swords, but also their pens, that they voted the 
freedom of the city to sundry soldiers and littera- 
teurs of that friendly nation. This act enabled 
the Marquis de Condorcet, when adding four 
letters to Mazzei's book, to use the nom de plume 
of "A Burgess of New-Heaven." Candor compels 
the admission that the spelling used by him for 
the last word was only an unintentional compli- 
ment to life in the City of Elms. 

Because of the long sojourn of the French army 
in Rhode Island, there are frequent compHmen- 
tary references to Brown University, although La 
Rochefoucauld ranks it after Yale and Harvard: 
"The college is maintained at Providence by 
legacies, gifts, and private subscriptions, but as 
it is incompletely kept up, famihes who wish to 
give their children a more careful education send 
them to Massachusetts or Connecticut. The 
principal gifts to the college have been made by 
a Baptist. He has imposed the condition that 
the chief posts and most of the others also must 
be filled by men of that persuasion, and that 
fact has drawn to this State a greater number of 
that sect than of any other." 

Because of the sedate reputation which Prince- 
[245] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

ton has earned and long enjoyed, the author does 
not hesitate to discharge his duty as historian by 
quoting in full St. Mery's remarks concerning 
that distinguished institution: "Princeton has 
one college, with a brick wall around a dirty 
courtyard, which is a bad example to set the 
students. There is also an old cannon which is 
in bad condition. In Nassau Hall are forty-two 
bedrooms, each for three students. Although 
there is room for one hundred and twenty stu- 
dents, there are generally only about eighty in 
residence, mostly from Virginia and the two 
Carolinas. The hfe there is too easy-going. 
Gaming and loose hving occupy the students 
more than study." Chastellux was a most dis- 
criminating observer, so that over against those 
just quoted shall be set liis remarks upon what 
he calls "Prince-Town": "This town is situated 
on a sort of shghtly elevated plateau sloping off 
on every side. It has but one street, which is 
formed by the highway. The houses are to the 
number of sixty or eighty, all pretty well built, 
but they are hardly noticed because one's atten- 
tion is at once called to an immense building 
easily seen from a distance. It is a college that 
the State of New Jersey built several years before 
the War. As this building is remarkable for its 
size alone, it is useless to describe it. I dis- 
mounted for a moment to go through the vast 
[246] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

edifice. I was joined almost immediately by Mr. 
Withersporn [sic], President of the University. He 
is a man of at least sixty years of age, a Mem- 
ber of Congress, and very highly esteemed in his 
country. In meeting me he spoke French, but 
I easily perceived that he had acquired the use 
of this language rather by reading than by con- 
versation, which did not prevent me from reply- 
ing to him in French, for I saw that he was very 
pleased to show that he knew it. With an annual 
expenditure of forty guineas, parents can keep 
their children in this college. Lodging and the 
teachers take up half of this sum, and the rest is 
for food, either at the college itself or in board- 
ing-houses in the town. Since the War this use- 
ful institution has fallen into decay. They had 
gotten together a great number of books, most of 
which had been dispersed. The EngHsh had 
even taken from the chapel the portrait of the 
King of England, but the Americans were easily 
consoled for this loss, saying that they did not 
want a King, — not even a painted one." 

Of far wider scope than the educational influ- 
ences exercised by our universities and colleges is, 
and always has been, that wielded by our news- 
papers, and from the very beginning of ourre- 
pubhc the character of those educating and en- 
lightening publications has been of an excellence 
unsurpassed in foreign lands. One has only to 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

recall that Benjamin Franklin, our first and great- 
est diplomat, was a member of that worthy guild 
to realize the liigli type of many of the men con- 
cerned in the presentation of current events to 
our pubhc thirsty for information. No wonder 
Robin remarks that "almost all take the news- 
paper which is printed in their neighborhood," 
or that "all, from the Congressman to the work- 
man, read one or other of the thousands of news- 
papers which appear." Dupont observed that 
while "a large part of the nation reads the Bible, 
all of it assiduously peruse the newspapers. The 
fathers read them aloud to their children while 
the mothers are preparing breakfast, something 
which takes at least three quarters of an hour 
every morning." "Very numerous," says Deux- 
Ponts, "are their newspapers or gazettes, in- 
fallible barometers of pubhc opinion, for their 
editors would have no sale if they did not print 
what the majority liked. Back in the country 
they only appear weekly, but in towns of the 
second class twice a week, while in the large cities 
they come out morning, noon, and night. This 
multiphcity of papers, dangerous where unneces- 
sary, is advantageous in the United States. It 
would be difficult to invent a better guide for 
public opinion." Brissot realizes that "those 
newspapers are the channel of information in 
America, and that is why they are kept so gener- 
[248] 




J2 a 
^ a 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

ally informed." Says Bonnet: "They take an 
interest in politics because they read the news- 
papers, of which more than 30,000 sheets are 
published each week in the five New England 
states alone." 

Minister Ternant wrote home, August 19, 1792: 
"The newspapers are filled daily with articles either 
defending or bitterly attacking the new federal 
government, as well as the actions of its principal 
agents, and each party seeks thus to win the ap- 
proaching elections." So important did he con- 
sider it that his government be kept constantly 
advised of the opinions expressed in the American 
newspapers that he regularly forwarded it two of 
them published in Philadelphia, "one (the General 
Advertiser) is the property of the celebrated Dr. 
Frankhn's grandson and successor as printer, and 
the other (the National Gazette) is edited by a Mr. 
Fresneau, an employee of the State Department." 
The great political usefulness of these numerous 
public prints especially appealed to Lafayette: 
" In this happy country, where everyone hears of 
and follows the course of public events, news- 
papers prove of great assistance in the Revolu- 
tionary cause." In Boston, says Bourgeois, "there 
are printed, just as in London, not only books 
but also daily sheets called 'papers,' wliich have 
encouraged both credulity and fanaticism among 
them — what a curious collection it would be if 
[249] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

there were gotten together all the different 
gazettes published in Boston, and circulated 
thence tliroughout the United States!" He 
seemed to think the editors capable of sometimes 
coloring the news to suit their own wishes, and 
General Moreau also thought "the newspapers of 
this land do not always tell the truth, when it is 
a question of their own interests." 

Savarin gives amusing testimony to the prompt 
enterprise displayed by the New York newspapers, 
which "reported fairly accurately" a drinking bout 
in which he and two French friends were pitted 
against two EngHshmen from Jamaica. This was 
in 1794, and he tells us that what the New York 
reporters printed of this bacchic struggle was 
copied by other papers all over the country. 
There is something quite modern in the story of 
how Perrin du Lac learned of the enterprise of 
our reporters before he had time to notice any- 
thing else American. The boat on which he ar- 
rived was inspected by the medical officer from 
the quarantine station just off Staten Island. 
"Hardly had we again hoisted sail than we saw 
approaching several newspaper men anxious to 
get the latest news from Europe. We gave them 
such newspapers as we had, and in return therefor 
they took ashore with them such passengers as 
wished to land." 

Even in the then most sparsely settled regions, 
[25o] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

the newspapers' educating influence was con- 
stantly exerted. "In the province of Main [sic] 
they only print one newspaper twice a week," 
says La Rochefoucauld, "but that is an important 
one. It is widely circulated in the country dis- 
tricts, and read with interest. Newspapers are 
more numerous in New Hampshire, three of them 
are printed at Portsmouth, two at Dover, and one 
at Darmouth [sic] on the Connecticut River, 
where the state college is located." St. Mery tells 
us that in Norfolk, Virginia, there were two 
printing offices, two newspapers, and a loan hbrary, 
but he gives the pahn to Philadelphia, with its 
thirty-one printing offices, and thirteen news- 
papers. In this conclusion several other writers 
agree, among them Brissot: "There is no city on 
this continent where they print so much as in 
Philadelphia. The printing offices, the news- 
papers, and the booksellers are as numerous there 
as the booksellers are throughout the State." 
While speaking of Lexington's two presses, each 
printing a biweekly gazette, Michaux (junior) 
comments that "some of the paper is made in 
this country and costs a third more than in 
France; writing-paper is imported from England." 
It is perhaps surprising to learn that the early 
American gazettes did not confine themselves to 
neighborhood, or even to American news. It was 
from a Boston newspaper that the Marquise de 

[25l] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

la Tour du Pin learned that her father, Colonel 
Arthur Dillon, had been guillotined in Paris, 
April 13, 1794, and she adds: "Indeed all the 
news from France was printed in the American 
papers as soon as received." While dining at 
General Schuyler's in Albany, she learned from 
a loccJ newspaper of the overthrow of Robes- 
pierre, and she comments on the personal satis- 
faction this news gave to Talleyrand and Beau- 
metz, who were also present on that occasion. 
It was from an American newspaper that Chateau- 
briand learned the exciting news of the flight 
from Paris of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, 
and their arrest at Varennes, which decided him 
to return to France and aid their cause by join- 
ing the army of the French princes. Brissot re- 
cords that "Salem, like all American cities, has 
a printing press and a newspaper which copies 
from the newspapers of other States. While 
waiting for supper there I read a newspaper in 
which was the speech dehvered by Monsieur de 
I'Epremesnil when he was arrested in open parlia- 
ment (in Paris). What an admirable invention is 
the printing press ! — it puts all nations into touch. 
It electrifies one by the recital of fine actions in 
one country that will soon become common to 
all." Minister Fauchet criticised French news- 
papers for not reaching our standard in printing 
foreign news, and complained. May 17, 1795, to 

[252] 




o -5 



IS 

o 



taiD B 



O 
U 






EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

the Committee of Public Safety: "I cannot 
avoid expressing to you my astonishment at see- 
ing the French papers full of absurd stories about 
America, despite my continually sending you an 
account of the noteworthy events here." 

In view of what we have just learned of how 
large was the reading public enjoyed by the 
numerous American newspapers, we are quite 
prepared to find the Frenchmen encountering a 
wide-spread interest in political questions. Segur 
had hardly landed and started for Philadelphia 
when he mentions that "as all took a great in- 
terest in public affairs, before allowing me to go, 
I had to reply as best I might to countless ques- 
tions which they asked." Even more forcibly is 
this evidenced in the episode of Rochambeau's 
vehicle breaking down on the road near Wind- 
ham, Connecticut, necessitating the services at 
night of a carter whom they found already in 
bed: "The man was sick, and though they of- 
fered to fill his hat with guineas he would not 
work at night, but when he heard who it was, 
he did so. Called out a second time, he still 
asked further pohtical questions, and ended by 
saying: 'Well! you are worthy men, you shall 
have your wagon by five o'clock in the morning, 
but before setting to work and without wishing 
to pry into your secrets, — are you pleased with 
Washington, and was he with you ? ' We assured 
[253] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

him that we were. His patriotism was satisfied, 
and he kept his word." "All the agricultural 
people in the interior," said Rochambeau, who re- 
counts the foregoing anecdote in his memoirs, "and 
almost all the landholders of Connecticut are ani- 
mated by this public spirit, which should serve 
as a model for many others." Beaujour remarks, 
"The conversation of the men generally turns 
upon pohtics," and Chastellux adds: "Every 
American conversation has to wind up with poli- 
tics." Bayard evidently agrees with the two 
foregoing: "After the ladies withdrew, we talked 
politics. The liberality of the sentiments of these 
two Americans as well as their education encour- 
aged me to hazard some reflections on the mode 
of elections adopted in the United States." Bay- 
ard was not the only Frenchman to notice that 
Americans loved to talk pohtics at table, for 
Minister Adet reported home in 1795 that "it is 
after dinner that one relaxes, discusses matters, 
and it is during the toasts that confidence and 
persuasion can shp in. Your Minister could do 
nothing here did he not often have Congressmen 
at his table." Mazzei concludes that "they seek 
to inform themselves upon public affairs because 
they find it to their interest. The progress made 
by the American people, since the beginning of 
the Revolution till now, in the matter of reason- 
ing upon this sort of affairs, is really astonishing." 
[254] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

This same Mazzei was the indiscreet person who, 
by quoting Jefferson in his letter of April 24, 1796, 
to the Directory, which it hastened to pubhsh 
in the Monileur of January 25, 1797, was (accord- 
ing to Robert de Crevecoeur, biographer of his 
distinguished progenitor) the means of causing 
the estrangement between Jefferson and Wash- 
ington wliich persisted so long. That Jefferson 
cherished no ill-feeling against Mazzei for tliis in- 
discretion is clear from the friendly tone of a sub- 
sequent letter from the former to the latter. 

Nor did the interest in public affairs, everywhere 
noticeable in the United States, evidence itseff in 
speech alone. Baron de Kalb, that intelligent in- 
vestigator of the French Government, who ended 
his career so gloriously at the battle of Camden, 
reported to his Foreign Office that, even while 
there was still peace, "Boston has suspended all 
commerce with the port of London. The people 
are no longer willing to use anything brought from 
or made there." The women even denied them- 
selves their cherished solace of tea in order to in- 
jure the English tea trade, and the men, on the oc- 
casion of the "Boston Tea Party," changed this 
passive resistance into an active one by turning 
Boston Harbor into a stronger infusion of the costly 
herb than the English authorities could stomach. 
Our early women-folk were as sturdy as their 
consorts in practical demonstrations of their keen 
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FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

interest in public affairs, as appears from La- 
fayette's letter of October 7, 1780, to his wife: 
"The women have made and are still making 
subscriptions to aid the soldiers. When this idea 
was broached I made myself your ambassador 
to the ladies of Philadelphia, and you are down 
for one hundred guineas on their list." Chastel- 
lux's account of a call upon Mrs. "Beach" 
(Franklin's daughter), gives a pleasant picture 
of how practical was the women's patriotism: 
"Simple in her manners as her respected father, 
she has also his benevolence. She led us into a 
room filled with recent handiwork of Philadelphia 
ladies. This work was neither embroidered waist- 
coats, nor sets of lace, nor even gold embroidery, 
— it was shirts for the Pennsylvania soldiers. 
These ladies had provided the cloth at their own 
expense, and had taken real pleasure in cutting 
and sewing them themselves. On each shirt was 
marked the name of the lady or girl who had 
made it, and there were 2,200 of them !" 

Connecticut was not behind Maryland in set- 
ting patriotism before thrift when her interest in 
public affairs was appealed to, for after the vic- 
tory at Yorktown, Rochambeau says that on 
his way to his transports at Boston "the French 
Army, in its march, crossed Connecticut, and 
Governor 'Trumbold' and his Council issued a 
proclamation requesting all their fellow-citizens 
[256] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

not to increase prices during the march of the 
French Army. Everybody conformed thereto so 
generously that each soldier's mess obtained daily 
at a very low price all sorts of food to add to their 
ordinary rations." Beaujour believes our zest 
for politics was due to our English origin: "They 
get their political opinions from those nations 
from which they spring, and as most of them are 
of English origin, they have carried to America 
all those elements of discord which agitate Eng- 
land. In every State they are divided into two 
great parties, like those of the Whigs and Tories, 
and what is most tiresome is that neither of those 
parties knows exactly what it wants, or at least 
takes no steps to obtain it." Then follow four 
pages of what he understands to be American 
politics, but he can hardly be said to unravel the 
mysteries thereof. Comte de Fersen showed a 
much keener insight than he when he remarked: 
"It is a country which will surely be very happy 
... if the two political parties which now divide 
it do not make it suffer the fate of Poland and 
of so many other repubhcs." Milfort found the 
political strife between our "Wigth and Toris'* 
so violent and objectionable that he took refuge 
among the Indians of the backwoods, where he 
lived for twenty years! It is pleasant to see 
that Perrin du Lac was impressed by the fact 
that, "although a strong party spirit animates 
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FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

almost all the members of Congress, and although 
the Senate and the Executive show it in all their 
dehberations, it never fails to yield to a regard 
for the common weal, which reunites all those 
patriotic individuals when anything touches pub- 
lic prosperity." As Perrin du Lac refers to 
Congress let us read the Due de Broglie's account 
of its meeting- place : "The Hall of Congress is 
on the ground floor, very large, and with no 
other adornments than a poor engraving of Mont- 
gomery, another of Washington, and the Decla- 
ration of Independence. There are thirteen tables 
covered with green cloth, and at each of these, 
during the sessions, sits one of the principal rep- 
resentatives of each of the thirteen States. The 
President of the Congress is placed in the centre 
of the room on a sort of throne, the clerk below 
him," He also remarks that in a wing of the 
building next this hall, rooms are provided for 
ambassadors from the savage tribes. 

A little time ago, a friend of the author re- 
marked to him that the worthies of the Revolu- 
tion and the times in which they lived had be- 
come so idealized as to seem to him no more 
human than a steel engraving. As a protest 
against this use of denatured alcohol for preserv- 
ing the memories of our glorious past, and by 
way of proving that our worthy sires were quite 
as human as their descendants, it seems well to 
[258] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

conclude this chapter with Bayard's description 
of scenes on election day, which for real human 
nature rival those which Mr. Pickwick and Samuel 
Weller witnessed: "Your election days are days 
of debauch and qucirrels. Candidates pubhcly 
offer drinks to whosoever will give them votes. 
Those who would excuse everything reply that 
the intention of the candidates is only to offer 
refreshments to those abandoning their work and 
coming from a distance. It is a great scandal 
that these candidates are charged with this en- 
tertainment, and another that the voters should 
live so far away from the place of election. The 
taverns are occupied by party adherents. The 
citizens take their stand under the banners of the 
candidates, and the voting-place is often sur- 
rounded by men armed with sticks, who push 
back and intimidate the voters of the opposing 
party. Therefore, it is not the people who regis- 
ter their decision but the factions which fight 
about it. After the candidates have published 
their platforms in the pubHc prints, their adher- 
ents start the campaign, and give drinks to those 
they wish to win over. To get the recruits all 
together, the pubhc is often notified to assemble 
on such a day at such a tavern in order to clarify 
the opinion of the voters. If the candidate has 
oratorical t£Jent, he is to be found there harangu- 
ing his friends and awaiting with security the day 
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FRENCH MEMORIES 

of election. The country-people come on horse- 
back, and in troops of two by two. Drums beaten 
by hirelings who cry out ' Huzza ! ' at the top of 
their lungs, complete the martial confusion on 
election day. Women solicit votes, running from 
shop to shop to get them." "This is a true pic- 
ture of what happens in the maritime cities," 
replied Mr. Smith, "but it is overdrawn if you 
are trying to depict election-days in the interior 
cities." And General Dumas makes a similar 
geographical distinction: "The elections of coun- 
try members are free from bribery. A man may 
seduce some of his fellow-citizens by his eloquence, 
but he cannot win their votes by his money." 



[260] 



CHAPTER XI 

RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES 

So strictly was the Sabbath observed in Revo- 
lutionary days that "some pleasant dames, rather 
jolly souls, whom I went to see in Providence, 
would not even sing on Saturday evening. Last 
September on my way from Philadelphia to the 
Hudson, something happened which shows how 
general is this observance. One Sunday some 
officers came to call, and proposed we play a 
game of reversi, but the landlady indignantly 
burst in and tried to snatch away the cards. I 
had difficulty in quieting her, and had to have 
an Irish priest who spoke English explain that our 
religious principles did not forbid playing cards 
on Sunday." And the foregoing was written, 
not by some wild young blade of the French 
army, but by the conscientious, hard-working 
commissary, Blanchard ! "From Saturday eve- 
ning on," says Bourgeois, "all doors are shut, 
nor do they open until Monday morning, and 
during the hours of divine service no one is allowed 
to walk about the streets on pain of imprisonment. 
Strangers alone are exempt from this regulation, 
but even they must take care not to make the 
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FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

slightest noise." And if perchance they did in- 
dulge in untimely noises — whal happened? The 
answer shall come from Chaplain Robin, who will 
a tale of woe unfold fully as diverting as Blan- 
chard's, — also about an unwary stranger who 
nearly got into trouble by choosing the wrong day 
on which to be noisy: " One Sunday, a Frenclmian 
who hved with me took it into his head to play 
the flute. The people started to mob liim, and 
would have carried matters to extremes if the 
landlord had not stopped him!" This unfortu- 
nate man had evidently not been warned that 
"Sunday is observed with the greatest respect. 
All business, no matter how important, stops. 
Even the most innocent pleasures are not per- 
mitted. Boston, a city of large population, where 
there is always a great deal going on, seems a 
desert on these days. One meets nobody on the 
streets, and if you happen upon someone, you do 
not dare stop and talk with him!" These two 
serio-comic episodes (both, by the way, chaperoned 
by priests) demonstrate that neither the flute- 
player nor the card-players were merely victims 
of local "blue-laws," but that the will of the 
American people themselves was reflected in 
those regulations. It took a little time for this 
un-European fact to dawn upon these friendly 
strangers. Nor was this phenomenon true of 
municipal statutes alone. Our Declaration of 
[262] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

Independence was widely known in Europe and 
greatly admired, but very few of the contempo- 
rary Frenchmen had any idea, before they landed 
here, how completely that immortal document 
voiced the deeper feehngs of the people, and par- 
ticularly in those passages which attribute our 
liberty to the Divine Author. They came to 
learn, and with sober astonishment, that the Uves 
of our ancestors proved that their Declaration 
was a pronouncement of facts, not phrases. 

In such a book as this there is no place for 
any of the many tedious discussions as to the 
tenets of the various sects found by the French 
in America; still less are we interested in the fre- 
quent disputes among them concerning these dis- 
cussions. Brissot criticises Chastellux, Bayard 
attacks Brissot, etc., etc. But it does interest us, 
and greatly, too, to notice the deep impression 
made upon the Europeans by our system of abso- 
lute religious liberty, the large number of our 
sects (none of which predominated), our very un- 
European observance of the Sabbath, and our (to 
them) novel attitude toward churches and atten- 
dance upon them. Short as was the time which 
the French spent among us, it sufficed to impress 
them with the deep sincerity of religious feehng 
which, then, as always, ran and still runs through 
every class of our society. Mazzei boldly main- 
tains that "among all these States there is none 
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FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

where religious liberty is not on a better footing 
than in any part of Europe." Even before Bris- 
sot reached American shores he learned on board 
ship that "these sailors are very rehgious, as are 
all American sailors with whom I have since trav- 
elled"; and Bayard, after liis fine phrase, "Ameri- 
cans have a robust confidence in the Lord," adds 
that "during moments of leisure, religion is a 
subject of conversation, but less for the purpose 
of criticising other sects than for confirming the 
belief of each speaker in his own. Sometimes, 
however, they treat members of sects other than 
their own rather stiffly." Says Beaujour: "Re- 
ligion is not only necessary to a man in American 
social hfe, but even more so in private life. The 
Americans have acted wisely in admitting all re- 
ligions alike and in excluding atheism alone." 
Mazzei notices that "the citizens who are not of 
some Christian religion are few in number." 
While travelling through Connecticut, Robin ob- 
serves: "I never entered a house without finding 
a Bible there, which they read evenings and 
Sundays in the family." 

"Throughout all of America," says La Roche- 
foucauld, "the great ambition of every new town 
is to build a church," and he shows how, even be- 
fore they could afford a church, the people were 
ministered to by itinerant preachers: "There is 
not a religious edifice in this province [Maine] 
[264] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

elsewhere than in Belfast and Penobscot. Sundry 
fsimished ministers travel through the townships 
preaching a sermon or two, for which they are paid 
four dollars, and go on to preach elsewhere the 
following Sunday." Blanchard noted down that 
in and about Boston everybody drove to church, 
but that out in the country both young and old 
generally arrived on horseback; outside of one 
country church he counted over a hundred horses. 
The scrupulous observance of the Sabbath, so 
different from the custom in Europe, caused many 
comments, not all of which are complimentary. 
Says Bayard: "Coming back from Church, I 
observed that all the house doors were closed. 
They remained so all day long. Everyone seemed 
to be in retirement. Mrs. Bush, as well as her 
daughters, withdrew after dinner to read several 
chapters of the Old and the New Testament. It 
is thus that in all the United States they keep 
Sunday." "You cannot go into a house," says 
Robin, "without finding everybody occupied in 
reading the Bible. It is a touching spectacle to 
see a father surrounded by his family expounding 
to them the sublime truths of the Sacred Book. 
No one fails to attend the church of his sect. 
Absolute silence is preserved there, as well as an 
order and respect which has not existed for a 
long time in most of our Catholic churches. The 
singing of the psalms is slow and majestic. The 
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FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

harmony of the poetry in the national language 
increases the interest, and must contribute to 
hold the attention of the audience." Blanchard 
also found "the singing pleasant and well done, 
not by priests and salaried chaplains, but by 
men and women, young and old, assembled to- 
gether by reason of a common desire to praise 
God." An equally pleasant picture of the in- 
terior of a church during service is painted by 
Crevecceur: "Here on a Sunday one sees a con- 
gregation of respectable farmers and their wives, 
all clad in neat homespun, well mounted or riding 
in their own humble wagons. There is not a 
squire among them, saving only the unlettered 
magistrate. There is a parson as simple as his 
flock, and farmers who do not fatten on the labor 
of others." 

But worldly as well as philosophical Chastellux 
would have us believe that we carried matters to 
an extreme: "They also agree in a practice which 
does not seem to me to have any necessary con- 
nection with the dogmas of protestantism, — I 
refer to the extreme severity with which they 
observe the Sabbath. That day is consecrated 
to divine worship, which is an excellent idea, 
but it is also consecrated to repose, and of what 
use is repose without gaiety, without diversion ! 
I venture to say that in America you know noth- 
ing either of the strain of work or of the plea- 
[266] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

sure of repose. What a distressing silence reigns 
in your cities on Sunday ! One would think 
that a violent epidemic — a pest, had obhged 
everybody to shut himself up at home." Then 
after describing the gayety of a European Sab- 
bath, he adds: "In America it is entirely differ- 
ent. Nothing but laziness, no music or dancing, 
the sexes separated. As the women know of 
nothing else to do than make a toilette which 
has not already been shown at Meeting, they 
perforce drop into mere idleness, with no diver- 
sion but frivolous conversation and gossip, while 
the men, bored with having read the Bible to 
their children, assemble around a joyless bowl, 
at the bottom of which there is nothing but 
drunkenness." Michaux (the elder) complained 
that "they are so full of scruples in America, that 
on Sundays in the cities one dare not go out even 
to take a walk." It required so keen an observer 
as Marnezia to notice that "although the Sundays, 
so rehgiously, even scrupulously, observed in 
America, are for them holy days, they are not 
sad ones." 

As to the interiors of our churches, it is but 
natural that the French should find them over- 
simple and lacking in decoration after the splen- 
dor of their own cathedrals. In Boston, Abbe 
Robin remarks that "there are nineteen churches 
of different sects, all clean and some very pretty, 
[267] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

especially those of the Presbyterians and the 
Anghcans. Their shape is a long quadrilateral, 
with a speaking desk, and furnished with uniform 
benches. All these churches are bare of orna- 
ment, and nothing appeals to the imagination or 
the heart, nor reminds a man of what he has 
come there to do, what he is, or what he is going 
to be. Neither painting nor sculpture recall 
those great events which stimulate his sense of 
duty. No pomp or ceremonies paint for him the 
greatness of the Being whom he adores, no pro- 
cessions suggest the homage owed to Him by 
whom nature is awakened, and by whom the 
fields are covered with harvests and the trees 
with fruit." Indeed, to such an extent is this 
simplicity carried that Brissot queries: "Can one 
properly give this name (church) to a room where 
there are only benches? — no ornament, painting, 
altar, chairs, — nothing, in a word, of all that one 
sees in the churches of other religions." 

Notwithstanding this simplicity of the churches, 
both within and without, the effect which they 
produced upon our visitors was, says Brissot, very 
pleasant: "Nothing is more charming than the 
appearance of a church or meeting-house on a 
Sunday. A good suit is on the back of every man, 
cloth from India or England attires the women 
and children, without their being spoiled by those 
fallals or ornaments which ennui, fancy and bad 
[268] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

taste load upon our women." He adds: "Church 
service in America is merely a meeting of brothers 
who come there to shake hands, think and pray 
together." When he reaches Connecticut he be- 
comes even more enthusiastic: " Weatherfields [sic] 
is remarkable for its elegant meeting-house or 
church. It is said to present an enchanting spec- 
tacle on Sunday because of the many young and 
pretty girls assembled there and for the agreeable 
music with which divine service is interspersed." 

The only reference to a recognition of official- 
dom by the church is in St. Mery's statement that 
St. Paul's in New York "is equipped with benches, 
one of which is against the wall for members of 
Congress, and opposite to it is another one reserved 
for the Governor." The importance in the com- 
munity of the minister of the gospel was re- 
marked by Rochambeau: "The highest seat in all 
pubhc banquets was reserved for the clergyman. 
He blessed the repast, but these prerogatives went 
no further than social intercourse." 

Because of the stirring events then taking place, 
it was but natural that rehgious services should 
sometimes take on a political complexion. We 
learn from Lafayette that "the sermons also 
speak out on its [revolutionary cause's] behalf, 
for the Bible is often republican." Having ad- 
vised an Anglican clergyman to talk of nothing 
but heaven while in the pulpit, Lafayette Hstened 
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FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

on the following Sunday to " the disgraceful House 
of Hanover," which proved how little the preach- 
er's patriotism coincided with the Frenchman's 
view of professional etiquette! Chastellux gives 
further testimony to the same efTect: "Passing in 
front of the Meeting-House just at the hour of 
service, I had the curiosity to go in and remained a 
good half hour so as not to interrupt the preacher, 
and also to show respect to those assembled. 
There were not many people on account of the 
excessive cold weather, but I saw several pretty 
young ladies, very elegantly dressed. Mr. Bark- 
minster, the young minister, spoke with much 
grace, and rather reasonably for a preacher. I 
especially noticed the adroit manner in which he 
brought pohtics into his sermon by comparing 
Christians bought by the blood of Jesus Christ 
but continually obhged to combat flesh and sin, 
— by comparing them, I say, with the thirteen 
United States which have acquired liberty and 
independence but are obhged to employ all their 
strength to combat a formidable power and to 
preserve the treasure which they have acquired," 
Notwithstanding the pohtical nature of some of 
the sermons, we learn from Rochambeau that 
"owing to these precautions, religion did not at 
all enter into political deliberations." Beaujour 
agrees with him that "religion exercises small in- 
fluence here. All strange sects are admitted." 
[270] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

As to the good feeling existing between men of 
different reKgious views and the lack of religious 
dissension, there are many quotations available; 
let us take one from Mandrillon: "That which 
is the most edifying and at the same time most 
singular in the conduct of all the sects which have 
peopled Pennsylvania is the spirit of concord 
which reigns among them in spite of the differ- 
ence of their religious opinions. Although mem- 
bers of different churches, they love each other 
like children of the same father. They have al- 
ways lived as brothers because they have enjoyed 
the liberty to think as men. It is to this precious 
harmony that one should especially attribute the 
rapid advance of the colony." The keen-sighted 
Mazzei is particularly struck by what an advan- 
tage it was to the United States that there was 
no State church, and also that no one reUgion 
dominated the others. It is equally clear to 
Segur how valuable to the nation is this democ- 
racy of rehgion: "Besides, the multiplicity of 
sects makes tolerance indispensable cimong them 
and what would seem perhaps very singular is 
that the Catholics have set the example. No 
form of belief is dominant there, nor privileged. 
The ministers of each sect were paid by those who 
profess it, and they did not tolerate any objec- 
tionable jealousy (mother of discords), but in- 
stead there reigned a praiseworthy emulation in 
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FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

charity and other virtues." "All religions," says 
Perrin du Lac, "are respected and regarded by the 
Government of the United States as the most in- 
violable private property of the individuals pro- 
fessing them." He counted fifty-three different 
sects, and says their number was constantly being 
increased. Beaujour holds that " there is no coun- 
try in the world where there are so many religious 
sects as in the United States; there are fully 
sixty-three, but among them all (chffering less in 
dogma and in morahty than in rite and discipline) 
there are only two which deserve to be distin- 
guished from the rest, because each possesses a 
particular physiognomy — the Quakers and the 
Unitarians." Robin finds in Boston nineteen 
churches of all sorts, St. Mery twelve churches of 
ten sects in Baltimore, and La Rochefoucauld five 
in Albany, all of different denominations. How 
these various cults are geographically divided 
seemed especially to interest Segur, who notes 
that for religious reasons Dutchmen came to New 
England and New York, Swedes to New Jersey 
and Delaware, British Presbyterians to Boston, 
German Anabaptists and Irish Catholics to Penn- 
sylvania, and French Protestants to the Carolinas. 
Although several of the French writers criticise 
the Quakers for failing, because of religious 
scruples, to take an active part in the Revolu- 
tion, it is only just to those worthy folk to report 
[272 ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

a pleasing anecdote of Segur's concerning them: 
"Quakers are very strict as far as they personally 
are concerned, but never did anyone push tolera- 
tion further than they, and although war is in 
their eyes a great crime and they detest the mili- 
tary profession, still they know how to render 
just homage to warriors who are sparing of human 
blood and who combine virtue with bravery. 
One of the most renowned among them for his 
spirit came to see Rochambeau on his way through 
Philadelphia, and this is how he addressed him; 
— *my friend, yours is a villainous business, but 
they tell me that you carry it on with all the 
humanity possible. I am very glad of it, I am 
pleased to meet you, and I have come to pay my 
respects to prove my esteem for you.' " 



[273] 



CHAPTER XII 

THE LEARNED PROFESSIONS: LAW, 
MEDICINE, ARCHITECTURE, ETC. 

Jealous as were our American forefathers of all 
rank and titles, they nevertheless recognized the 
distinction due to education and brains, the pos- 
session of both of which has always been neces- 
sary for success in what are styled the learned 
professions. Even Crevecoeur, that champion of 
the farmer, cannot help admiring the superior 
education of our early lawyers, although he 
sounds a "wild alarum," which is of itself a great 
compHment to them and their abihty: "The three 
principal classes of inhabitants are lawyers, plant- 
ers, and merchants. This is the province which 
has yielded the first named their richest spoils, 
for nothing can exceed their wealth, their power, 
or their influence, — they have reached the ne plus 
ultra of worldly felicity. These men are rather 
law-givers than interpreters of the law, and have 
united here, as well as in most of the other prov- 
inces, the skill and dexterity of the scribe with 
the power and ambition of the prince. Who can 
tell where this may lead at some future day ? In 
[274] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

another century the law will possess in the north 
what now in Peru and Mexico belongs to the 
church." But even he grudgingly admits that "in 
some provinces, where every inhabitant is con- 
stantly employed in cultivating and tilling the 
earth, they are the only men who have any knowl- 
edge. They are here what the clergy were in 
past centuries with you." Although he finds him- 
self unable to deny that "lawyer and merchant 
are the fairest titles our town affords," he insists 
that "it is a pity that our forefathers, who hap- 
pily abohshed so many fatal customs and expunged 
from their new goverrmient so many errors and 
abuses, both rehgious and civil, did not prevent 
the introduction of a set of men so dangerous." 
In the same paragraph, however, his fair-minded- 
ness forces him to admit of Nantucket that "only 
one single lawyer has of late years been able to 
support liimself here. He is sometimes employed 
in recovering money lent or in preventing those 
events to which the contentious propensity of its 
inhabitants may sometimes expose them. He is 
seldom employed as a means of self-defense, and 
much seldomer for attack." St. Mery, whose so- 
journ in America was long enough to quahfy him 
to judge us, agrees that "their most remarkable 
men are the lawyers," and adds "this profession 
is more lucrative than in England." 

Some idea of whether or not the early American 
[275] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

lawyer was amassing undue hoards of wealth was 
learned by Chaslellux from a youthful veteran 
of the Revolution: "I chatted also with Mr. 
Scotland, a young man who, although only twenty- 
six years old, has fought in three campaigns as a 
Captain of Artillery and is now a lawyer with 
already a good practice. It is a fact that in 
America it is the most respected and lucrative 
profession. He told me that for a simple con- 
sultation they paid him ordinarily four dollars, 
or even a half joe (42 livres of our money). Be- 
sides, after the action is commenced, they pay 
as much again for each writ or each deed, that is 
to say, for each step and for each written paper, 
for in America lawyers are both solicitors and no- 
taries." Although Brissot finds that "the fees 
received by lawyers are much too high; they are, 
as in England, excessive," Chastellux speaks of a 
Mr. Smith who "was at the same time innkeeper 
and lawyer, and possesses a pretty Hbrary," show- 
ing either that the said Smith was an overgreedy 
accumulator of pelf or else, what is more likely, 
that it required something besides his receipts 
from the legal profession to support him ! A 
pleasing combination — to adjust a man's legal 
difficulties and replenish his inner man all at the 
same time and without change of scene ! 

We have already observed that early society 
tended to stratify itself, and that lawyers gener- 
[276] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

ally enjoyed a high standing in the community, 
and by way of showing that other elements than 
an educated brain entered into it, there is a charm- 
ing picture of a country lawyer from the pen of 
the Due de La Rochefoucauld: "I stopped to dine 
at Bidderfort (Maine) at Mr. Thasteher's, a law- 
yer whom I had seen at the General's on their 
return from the Circuit Court of Penobscot. 
Mr. Thasteher is also a member of Congress; he 
hves two miles from town in a modest dwelhng 
which the most insignificant lawyer of France 
would have considered beneath his dignity. Op- 
posite his house and across the road is a hut 
twelve feet square, built of roughly joined planks. 
This hut, perched on rocks on the side of the road 
(for all tliis section is very rocky) is his office 
(both for business and consultation) and his 
hbrary. The hbrary is composed of two thousand 
volumes, all excellently chosen, not only upon 
professional subjects but also of history, customs, 
and Kterature. It is provided with everything 
new that appears in America, and he has sent 
him from England all works he considers important 
and which he cannot get in the United States. 
He reads widely and is well educated. Both in 
thought and manner he displays an original turn 
which is not displeasing because unaffected but 
which sometimes imparts to his generally eccen- 
tric ideas a certain exaggeration or even error. 
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FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

Simple in his exterior, rigid even to severity in 
his principles, he is kindly, hospitable, obliging and 
respected in his neighborhood. His farm-house 
is never shut, his office is always open, for as he 
has never been robbed he thinks he should pay 
homage to the probity of his neighbors by this 
uncommon confidence. Mr. Thasteher complains 
that the establishment of good schools is not 
prompt enough in his district." 

As to the conduct of lawyers after elevation to 
the bench, it is gratifying to find that even in the 
early days of our republic there was the same good 
report of them that there has always been. Our 
courts even then stood so high in public esteem, 
and have so well maintained those early tradi- 
tions, that it is no wonder that our chief tribunal, 
the Supreme Court at Washington, is to-day gen- 
erally regarded as the most admirable bench in 
the world. Mazzei says: " The manner of trying 
cases in America is pretty well known; it has re- 
ceived the approbation and praise of even Abbe 
de Mably himself." Why not accompany St. 
Mery into a court-room and see for ourselves with 
his eyes: "The Court of Justice was assembled 
there and we had the curiosity to go and see it in 
session. One could hardly speak of the court- 
room as impressive, but, when looking at the 
jury, it was impossible to refrain from admiring 
an order of things which leaves the decision of 
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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

cases to the very class of men who are in a posi- 
tion to know how they came about, and in whom 
the study of law has not supplanted the emotions 
of the human heart. Furthermore, no matter 
how simple the temple consecrated to Justice, 
it always arouses the respect of men devoted 
to it." 

Turning from the profession of law to that of 
medicine, we find that the early American physi- 
cians shared with the lawyers their high standing 
in the community, just as they equally enjoyed 
confidential relations with it. Perhaps it is for 
the very reason that physicians and lawyers have 
always stood so high among us, that those two pro- 
fessions are, in America, recruited from a better 
class of society than they are abroad. Brissot 
makes it clear that there was no sordid induce- 
ment for an American to study medicine, for al- 
though he thought our lawyers overpaid, he com- 
plains: "But the doctors have not the same 
advantage in this respect as the lawyers." And 
he goes on to explain why the doctors did not earn 
so much as the lawyers: "The good health which 
is generally enjoyed here makes them less neces- 
sary, and yet they are pretty numerous. There 
are few maladies here, the air is healthy in spite 
of the nearness of the sea and the insular posi- 
tion of the city (New York) ; the inhabitants are 
pretty temperate. Men of means are not rich 

[279] 



FRENCH IVIEMORIES OF 

enough to give themselves over to that luxury 
and debauchery which kill so many in Europe 
and there are no really poor people, — fish and 
meat being cheap." How discouraging was our 
good health to the medical profession also appears 
from Crevecoeur's account of Nantucket: "Sin- 
gular as it may seem to you, there are but two medi- 
cal practitioners on the Island — for what service 
can physic be in a primitive society where inebria- 
tion is so rare?" La Rochefoucauld tells us to 
what straits the medical profession of Maine was 
reduced: "The country is absolutely bare of sur- 
geons, or at least of men who have sufficient 
knowledge to deserve the name. The inliabitants 
are not numerous nor rich enough to have good 
surgeons. This profession, always coupled with 
another more useful, becomes a secondary occupa- 
tion, and is only practised by ignorant fellows who 
hardly know how to bleed you." 

Chastellux is not the only one to comment upon 
how often American doctors were wise enough to 
recommend a change of air instead of plying their 
patients with drugs. As showing the appreciation 
abroad of the place enjoyed in the connnunity 
by American physicians, and therefore how ex- 
pedient it seemed to gain their favor, Crevecoeur, 
after the war, when he became French Consul in 
New York, issued a general notice, November 
17, 1783, to all medical societies offering to fur- 
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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

nish them certain French medical jom'nals at the 
expense of his king, which offer received a nmmber 
of acceptances. 

Passing from those professions which pecuKarly 
need the intimate confidence of chents, to those 
in which relations are more commercial and 
formal, we find that engineering, as a profession, 
was as yet so much in embryo as to excite but 
little comment from the French. General Wash- 
ington's skill as a surveyor was generally re- 
marked by them, but that was rather because 
everything that had to do with him seemed to 
exert a fascination upon the foreigners, a con- 
temporary effect which goes far to justify his 
place in our hearts to-day. Surveying when it 
touched Washington interested them, but not 
otherwise. Our great public works which were 
to develop a power rendering us the only nation 
in the world capable of constructing the Panama 
Canal, were as yet only possibilities of the dim 
future. The Frenchmen, of course, wrote only 
of what they could see, and although there was 
but little of engineering results for them to de- 
scribe, they do teU us much of our early architec- 
ture, whose tendencies were even then remarked 
as typically American. 

Says Crevecoeur: "An European on his arrival 
must be greatly surprised to see the elegance of 
their houses, their sumptuous furniture, as well as 
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FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

the magnificence of their tables, — can he imagine 
himself in a country, the establishment of which is 
of so recent a date P " Let us see just how all this 
actually did strike such an arriving European, in 
the person of Abbe Robin, the observant chaplain 
of Rochambeau's army: "From this harbor full of 
pleasant islands we see among the trees on the 
western shore a magnificent perspective of houses 
in an amphitheatre, stretching round in a half 
circle for more than half a league, — that is Boston. 
These high, regular buildings, interspersed with 
clock-towers, strike us less as a modern colony 
than an ancient city, embellished and peopled by 
commerce and the arts. . . This street is adorned 
with fine houses, for the most part two or three 
stories high. The construction of the houses is 
surprising to European eyes. They are entirely 
of wood, not built in the heavy and sombre fash- 
ion of our ancient towns but regularly and well- 
lighted. The carpenter-work is neat and well 
done, and the outsides are of smooth planks, 
clapboarded one above another like the tiles on 
our roofs; they are painted grey, adding greatly 
to the pleasing appearance. The roofs are orna- 
mented with balustrades, doubtless because of 
fires. The houses are built on foundations con- 
sisting of a wall about a foot high : — one sees at a 
glance how much healthier these houses must be 
than ours. All the parts are soHdly interlocked 
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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

and their weight is so trifling in comparison with 
their bulk that the houses can be moved about. 
I saw one of two stories which had been trans- 
ported at least an eighth of a league. The entire 
French army witnessed a similar feat at Newport. 
What we hear of the travelling houses of the 
Scythians is far less marvellous." Mandrillon 
characterizes Boston's buildings both pubhc and 
private as "magnificent." He also says of Charles- 
ton, South Carolina, that it had "some public 
buildings which would pass for handsome even in 
Europe." Another arriving European, this time 
the Comte de Segur, remarks of Dover, Delaware, 
one of the first towns he encounters: "All the 
houses of Dover present simple but elegant shapes. 
They are built of wood, and painted different 
colors. This variety in building, the cleanhness 
that reigns in them, the highly polished bronze 
door-knockers, all announce the order, activity, 
intelligence and prosperity of the inhabitants." 
Beaujour takes an opposite view and snubs us 
severely: "Their civil architecture is as yet un- 
formed, and their style in construction is as petty 
as their custom of building in parallel fines is 
tiresome. All the cities, moreover, are built of 
brick or painted boards, and if one excepts cer- 
tain edifices used for public banks, nothing could 
be more trivial than their architecture. It is 
Dutch wedded to Chinese, if one can apply such 
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FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

names to this grotesque style." By the time 
Brissot arrived this Dutch tendency in our archi- 
tecture was being modified: "Elegant buildings 
in the English style are replacing the houses with 
Dutch pointed gables. There are a few still to 
be found in the old style and they are pleasing 
to an European observer for they remind him of 
the origin of this colony." St. Mery says the 
houses are built by day labor, and especially no- 
tices that in the cities the cellar doors are allowed 
to encroach upon the sidewalks. Mandrillon 
finds that "the houses of New York, built of 
brick and roofed with tiles, are more comfortable 
than elegant," but Crevecoeur holds that they 
reveal "a union of Dutch neatness with English 
taste and architecture." Although but little is 
said of large rooms and halls devoted to pubhc 
entertainments, it is natural that the following 
reference to a Boston ballroom should be found 
in the pages of Chastellux, the pet of society: 
"It is superb, beautiful in its architecture, well 
decorated and lighted." De Broghe found no 
architecture in Philadelphia admirable except the 
prison, and Chateaubriand thought the uninter- 
rupted level of the housetops very monotonous ! 

Turning to humbler and more prosaic surround- 
ings, we learn from Brissot that "the shops in 
the country are always apart from the houses. 
This proves a taste for cleanliness and also their 

[ -m ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

respect both for home Ufe and their women, be- 
cause the men who come to purchase have, thanks 
to this arrangement, nothing to do with them." 
Most of the remarks upon architecture treat of 
country houses, and St. Mery elucidates for us 
the manner in which those buildings gradually 
improve with the circumstances of the owner: 
"On the highway between Philadelphia and New 
York the settlers built first a log cabin, after a 
while a wooden house of boards, and still later 
on a mansion often of stone, — at which time they 
employed the wooden house as a kitchen and the 
log cabin as a stable." That these country houses 
were constantly increasing in number is clear 
from Robin's observation that "there are no longer, 
as in Connecticut, only an occasional house along 
the road just large enough to lodge one family, 
and furnished with what is barely necessary; here 
in Maryland there are spacious homes isolated 
from each other, made up of different buildings 
surrounded by plantations; their furniture is of 
costly woods and rare marbles, adorned by skillful 
artists." In Connecticut he comments again upon 
the ample proportions characteristic of our archi- 
tecture: "Their houses are spacious, clean, well- 
aired, built of wood, possessing every comfort. 
I found in all of them indications of their in- 
dustrious and inventive genius." This same com- 
fortable feature impresses La Rochefoucauld dur- 
[285] 



FRENCH INIEMORIES OF 

ing his visit to General Knox's country place : 
"The houses are built near together, but out of 
a hundred visible from the General's house there 
are hardly half a dozen log-houses. His own 
house is a fine one without being magnificent, 
well-furnished but not luxurious, commodious 
enough to lodge comfortably a large family which 
may still increase, and also to entertain seven or 
eight friends." 

St. Mery notices how our architecture is adapted 
to local conditions: "In Norfolk, Virginia, the 
houses are built with a central hall running through 
them, which provides a living room for warm 
weather." Bayard also mentions the feeling of 
comfort which American houses seemed to inspire 
in the French: "On a sloping hillside you observe 
beside the road a white house with green blinds, — 
it belongs to Mr. Smith. There are two rooms 
below and the same number of bed-chambers on 
the first floor. The door is in the middle. Be- 
tween the parlors runs a wide corridor, open at 
both ends, to provide a current of air during the 
excessive heat of the dog-days. The kitchen is 
separated from the house by a covered passage. 
One might describe the parlors as handsomely 
furnished because the walls are covered with 
pretty paper." Blanchard also notices that "they 
make use of paper to cover their walls instead of 
tapestry and have some very pretty ones." Bris- 
[286] 




PlH 






EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

sot saw "some pretty wall paper" at Mr. Over- 
leaf's inn at Portsmouth. 

The luxm'ious Chastellux was not so easily 
satisfied with his lodgings in a Virginia country- 
house as the rest of his countrymen might have 
been: "Their houses are spacious and well fur- 
nished, but the bedrooms are not comfortable. 
They don't mind putting three or four people in 
the same room, who are not disturbed by being so 
crowded, because, not feeling the need for writing 
and reading, all they require indoors is a bed- 
chamber, a dining-room and a drawing-room. 
The chief magnificence of the Virginians consists 
of furniture, hnen, and table silver, so that they 
resemble our ancestors who had neither cabinets 
nor wardrobes in their chateaux, but only well- 
stocked wine cellars and good sideboards." 

It remains for that charming courtier, the 
Comte de Segur, to fittingly conclude these ob- 
servations upon our early architecture, by an 
inspiring sentence anent Philadelphia: "It is 
hardly the architecture of this city's edifices, but 
rather the great memories, which attract one's 
interest to them and command one's respect. 
The entire city is a noble temple erected to 
tolerance." 



[287 



CHAPTER XIII 

LABOR, MANUFACTURE, MERCHANT 
MARINE, AND FOREIGN TRADE 

That an enterprising spirit early characterized 
American business, and also that it received wide 
recognition abroad, appears from the following 
narrative: "A young man with no capital at all 
was undecided as to what he should do. He 
selected from English newspapers the names of 
five commercial houses, and wrote to each of 
them to see if he could find one which would give 
him credit. To his great surprise, all five car- 
goes came to him at the same time." Interesting 
as is this early appreciation by foreigners of the 
alert progressiveness of American business men, 
it is not so significant to our national well-being 
as their chorus of approving comments upon the 
dignity of labor in our new republic. It is a most 
welcome coincidence that foreigners should re- 
mark at the close of the eighteenth century, just 
as they are accustomed to do to-day, that lal^or 
was better paid and lived better in our country 
than in Europe. It has always been our good 
[288] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

fortune that facts should warrant this observa- 
tion — may they never cease to do so ! Nor was 
the reason far to seek — to labor was respectable. 

Segur, one of those especially struck with the 
dignity of labor in our land, says: "There, no 
useful occupation is ridiculed or despised, and amid 
unequal conditions all preserve the same rights. 
Idleness alone is shameful. Military rank, etc., 
does not prevent anyone from engaging in a pri- 
vate profession. Everybody is a merchant, farmer 
or artisan. The less well-to-do are domestics, 
worltmen, or sailors; far from resembling men 
of the lower classes in Europe, here they fully 
deserve the respect accorded them, and which 
their seemly air and conduct demands." More 
than by anything else was Crevecoeur struck by 
the respect we accorded to honest toil: "Every- 
one in the town of Nantucket follows some occu- 
pation with diligence but without that servihty 
which prevails in Europe. The mechanic seemed 
to be descended from as good parentage, was as 
well dressed and fed, and held in as much esteem 
as his employer." A few years later on Beau- 
jour observed the same state of affairs: "It must 
be remarked that the poorest individual, the ordi- 
nary day laborer, is better fed and clad here than 
in any other country. Add to this that here one 
never sees a man in rags, and that the poorest 
workman is always cleanly clad." Brissot fully 
[ 289 ] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

appreciates that the better scale of living enjoyed 
by the American workman than by his European 
brother, had a most important bearing upon the 
welfare of our people: " It is not rare to see in the 
United States a carter driving his cart and eating 
a turkey wing and some white bread. I have seen 
a vessel arrive in New York from Europe loaded 
with Scotchmen; the next day there was not one 
who was not hired out and busy." He also draws 
a comparison between the wages paid here and 
abroad: "The current rate for black servants in 
Philadelphia is four to five dollars per month, not 
including food. You see that these wages are 
much higher than that of servants in our coun- 
try districts, and even in our large cities, where 
the best paid do not get more than two hundred 
hvres." 

Clearly as they grasped our spirit of enterprise 
in commerce, and our higher regard for a Hfe of 
toil than for one of leisure, the Europeans seemed 
unable to understand how ready were the Ameri- 
cans to divert their efforts into any new channel 
which was either more profitable or temporarily 
necessary: "Because the land [Massachusetts], 
lacking fertility, yielded but a modest return, they 
turned to fishing and navigation and now they 
are fishermen and sailors." It always surprised 
the French to find retired American officers keep- 
ing inns, nor could they explain how General 
[290] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

Knox, a former bookseller, could almost at once 
become an excellent artillery commander. Al- 
though they found our enterprise and respect for 
work typical yet understandable, they continued 
to evince surprise at our adaptabihty and versa- 
tility. No class of our people was a greater bene- 
ficiary from this spirit of commercial enterprise 
than that termed "labor," because its high wages 
and better scale of living constantly benefited 
from the employment demand caused by Ameri- 
can enterprise. 

From two serious labor evils then existing we 
have fortunately since been freed, namely, slavery 
and the use of indentured servants and appren- 
tices — which latter practice was carried to such 
extremes as to justify Beaujour's criticism that 
while in the South, one-third of the population 
consisted of black slaves, in the North, a quarter 
of the entire youth, white as well as black, were 
bound by apprenticeship contracts. In the re- 
marks which Brissot makes upon the latter un- 
fortunate practice, he points out the superior 
efficiency of free, or unindentured labor; "Labor- 
ers are rare and they are dear. However, I don't 
know but that the lower wages paid indentured 
servants (offset as they are by the lesser efficiency 
of these apprentices) are after all less advanta- 
geous to the employer than the higher wages of 
free labor." Roux also decided that apprenticed 
[291 ] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

labor cost more than that of free men, because of 
the loss of time teaching apprentices to work, Iheir 
doctor's bills, and their ship-money due to the ship 
captains who brought them over. Perrin du Lac 
tells us that "this business [of providing inden- 
tured servants] is one of the most important in the 
United States. A ship captain arrives in Ireland or 
in some Hanseatic village. He announces that he 
will take back a number of passengers . . . those 
who cannot pay their passage money treat with him 
for it. He provides their food during the voyage, 
and on arrival sells their labor for an agreed sum. 
The duration of their slavery never exceeds two 
years for a bachelor nor four for a man of family. 
Wlien the time has expired they are free, and be- 
come citizens." 

Although in the early colonial days it was fre- 
quently difficult for newcomers to acquire land- 
holdings, this gradually corrected itself, and 
Rochambeau shows how easy it was by the time 
he got here for laborers to become landowners: 
"Because there is much more land to cleau* than 
there are hands for the work, laborers are much 
sought after. The ordinary manual or day-la- 
borer was paid in my time a piastre or five livres, 
— ten sous per day. Usually after working stead- 
ily for six years he has earned enough to buy a 
piece of land." 

It was considered a matter for congratulation 
[292 ] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

that the farmers expended much more labor and 
thought upon the farm than upon the dwelhng- 
house; says Chastellux: "Near Rockaway, I was 
astonished at the degree of perfection to which 
agriculture is carried. Throughout all this State 
the manor-house is very simple and small; the 
farm buildings alone are lofty and spacious. Faith- 
ful to national economy, they sow, reap and sell 
without enlarging their houses and expenditures, 
content to live in the corner of their farms, and to 
be mere witnesses of their own wealth." Man- 
drillon, in his detailed account of the condition of 
affairs in each of the States, ranks South Carolina 
at the head of them all in the matter of cultivation: 
"The country is well settled, — there are few dis- 
tricts in Europe where civilization and agriculture 
reach so high a degree of perfection." 

After tliis consideration of the lot of labor, that 
potent factor in the welfare of a nation, let us 
learn what the French thought of its employment 
in manufacture, — the new field in which we were 
later to prove so successful. Says Bayard, by 
way of looking into the future: "Americans will 
surely perfect the machines which assist the me- 
chanical arts because hand labor will be very 
dear there for several centuries. Their mills Eu-e 
superior to those of Europe." He was evidently 
better informed than Gerard, the French Minister, 
who in 1778 wrote home to Vergennes, the Min- 
[293] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

ister of Foreign Affairs, that "all the colonists of 
English extraction, except those of New England, 
are alien by character and custom alike to this 
sort of work [manufacturing]." In tliis connec- 
tion he also pointed out that "labor, always 
dearer in America than in England, has become 
even more so by depopulation caused by the war, 
by men gone off to the army, and for the three 
hundred privateering sliips, and also by the failure 
to import men to fill their vacancies." De Kalb 
early noted the feeling among Americans that 
they should not confine themselves to agriculture 
and fishing, but should invade the field of manu- 
facturing, and he reports to the French govern- 
ment certain patriotic efforts being made to that 
end: "There has just been formed in Boston a 
company of rich men willing to make large ad- 
vances for the encouragement of all sorts of manu- 
factures." And several years later, Brissot no- 
tices the same admirable plan in operation: 
"They have formed a company to assist and en- 
courage manufactures and business. These com- 
panies are in general composed of merchants, 
farmers, and the principal agents of the govern- 
ment; each contributes his knowledge and a 
small sum of money. In these companies they 
are not seeking ideals alone but rather utility and 
real profit." He also says: " Two things are very 
much the rage now among the Americans, viz.: 
[294] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

emigration to the west and manufacturing. On 
this last point Massachusetts seeks to rival Con- 
necticut and Pennsylvania." 

All the French felt that we should strive to 
become independent of foreign factories, and 
Mandrillon goes into discriminating detail in his 
advice upon the subject: "But in regard to manu- 
factures, a different course of conduct should be 
followed. Instead of giving general encourage- 
ment to the exercise of all the arts as in Great 
Britain, they should choose with sagacity and pre- 
caution certain objects for the success of which 
they can reasonably hope and this choice should 
be of articles of prime necessity or those at least 
without which it is difficult to get along." How 
prone our own people were to continue in agricul- 
tural pursuits, and to depend upon newly arrived 
foreigners to meet our manufacturing needs ap- 
pears from a report of February 28, 1795, sent by 
Minister Fauchet and his fellow Commissioners 
to the French government: "It is an incontesta- 
ble fact that America owes what few manufac- 
tures it possesses to emigrants from Europe. 
The latest revolutions in Geneva are going to 
give it (America) clockmaking, something which 
does not exist here. Five or six hundred Geneva 
artisans and capitahsts driven from their own 
country have united to erect an establishment 
on the North River in New York State. The land 
[295] 



FRENCH ^lEMORIES OF 

is actually bought and the prehminary arrange- 
ments completed." 

Mazzei comments on our backwardness in the 
matter of manufactured products: "We have al- 
ready remarked the reasons why manufactures 
have not been able, and will not for a long time be 
able, to establish themselves in the United States, 
at least in those parts which can easily trade with 
Europe. The only objects which they make in 
America, especially in the interior for the use of 
those who hve there, are of such heavy merchan- 
dise as cannot stand the increase of price oc- 
casioned by freight and other expenses." 

Brissot has the clearest vision of all as to our 
future manufacturing triumphs: "You will see the 
American opening new markets and locating in his 
fatherland those British manufactures which Eng- 
land had reserved for herself, and by this readjust- 
ment of industrial procedure reverse the balance of 
trade that used to be against America." How 
well this new movement was already succeeding in 
1778 appears from Brissot's statement in that year: 
"If any table of statistics can give you an idea of 
the prosperity towards which these confederated 
commonwealths are hastening, it is that of their 
exportations, which are constantly on the increase. 
It is difficult even to enumerate all the manufac- 
tured articles which the Americans now export 
and of which almost one half were until recently 
[296] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

unknown to them." As illustrating the interest 
which all Americans were then taking in our new 
manufacturing ventures, the postscript of a letter 
written by Wasliington to Lafayette, dated New 
York, October 11, 1790, is in point: "I send you 
a pair of shoe-buckles, not for the value of the 
present but as a remembrance, and as a sample 
of a mcinufactured article of this city." A few 
years later Beaujour comments: "Industrial 
manufacturing which for a long time remained 
stationary in the United States, has recently 
made rapid progress." He also comments in an 
illuminating manner on the status of manufactur- 
ing as seen by him at the beginning of the new 
century: "No proliibitive system, — no monopoly, 
hampers business in this country, and when one 
thinks of the prohibitions and monopolies which 
interfere with it in others, it is surprising that 
manufactures have not made even more progress 
here; but besides the lack of training which every- 
where retards the progress of the arts, that which 
particularly must retard it in the United States 
is the dearness of hand labor. In France, the 
average price of work by the day is two francs in 
towns and one and a half in the country ; here, it 
is one dollar in the towns and three-quarters of a 
dollar in the country, and, as the dollar is worth 
five and a quarter francs, you see that labor is 
three times dearer here than in France. The high 
[297] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

price of labor is therefore the principal cause 
wliich retards the progress of manufacturing in 
the United States, and Americans will not be able 
to equal Europeans until, following the English 
custom, they shall have supplemented by numer- 
ous machines the high price of hand labor. They 
have not as yet come to manufacture half of what 
they consume and, in view of all they buy abroad, 
one would think that they were still only a 
European colony." 

That acute observer Brissot gives us credit for 
intelligent specializing in our efforts: "But there 
is almost no part of the United States where they 
do not have very fine mills for corn or to saw wood 
into planks. The northern States also have them 
for making iron. It is especially in the construc- 
tion of mills that the Americans are distinguished, 
either for diversifying their use or for building and 
distributing them." This reference to specializing 
in commerce causes us to turn back to one of the 
proudest pages in our history — our former world- 
wide pre-eminence in constructing ships, which 
resulted in a splendid merchant marine, and which 
put into American pockets the sumptuous profits 
of a great ocean-carrying trade which we now 
apathetically permit to go abroad, while our 
merchant flags decorate museums or dangle from 
the sterns of coastwise shipping ! The writer re- 
members that during the two years he spent in 
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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

Buenos Aires, only one merchant ship bearing 
the American flag came to that crowded port. 
In the year 1911, no merchant vessel carrying 
the American flag entered the ports of London, 
of Havre, or Marseilles! 

But let us turn back to a pleasanter picture. 
Beaujour tells us that "the most important branch 
of American industry is the construction of ships. 
The Americans excel in naval architecture, and on 
this point they rival the most industrious peoples 
of Europe. The finest ships come from the dock- 
yards of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York, 
but the best of all are those built of wood from the 
Carolinas in the southern ports. They estimate 
the annual tonnage of vessels constructed in the 
different shipyards at near one hundred thousand 
tons." Abbe Robin speaks as decidedly as do all 
the others on tliis subject: "Their shipyards, estab- 
lished in all their ports, have made them the rivals 
of the best constructors of the old world. The 
commerce of Boston furnished to Great Britain 
masts and yards for the Royal Navy. The Ameri- 
cans constructed on commission or for their own 
account a large number of merchant ships re- 
nowned for the superiority of their sailing powers. 
They are so lightly built that one does not need 
to be a connoisseur to distinguish them from the 
ships of all other nations." Pontgibaud remarks: 
"I found a fine looking three-master for they en- 

[ 299 ] 



FRENCH INIEMORIES OF 

joyed, and justly, the reputation of being very 
good shipbuilders." And St. Mery, who came 
to America in one of our vessels, testifies that 
"American ships are solidly built, are very clean 
and well furnished, — a good deal of mahogany 
being used." How widely this superiority was 
recognized abroad appears from Brissot's remeo-k 
that "the Dutch houses which trade with America 
have given up using Dutch ships, which, much 
heavier than American ones, require a longer 
time for the trip. ... I have since learned that 
this ship made another voyage to Marseilles and 
was sold there to a French house. This sale of 
American constructed ships is a branch of indus- 
try wliich will some day expand and become very 
advantageous to the Americans who both con- 
struct vessels and sell them." He quotes Lord 
Sheffield as saying that the building of ships, 
either for sale or hire, is a very considerable 
branch of commerce with the Americans. De 
Kalb in a report to the French Government, says: 
"I am constantly astonished at the great number 
of merchant vessels wliich I see in the harbors, 
rivers, and bays, all the way from the Potomac 
River and Chesapeake Bay in Virginia as far up 
as Boston. I fmd everywhere a great deal of 
work going on in the shipyards." Perrin du Lac 
predicted that our "shipbuilding will, for a long 
time, prove a source of riches and prosperity;" — 
alas, that the period should have ended. 
[3oo] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

Mandrillon explains how the greatest possible 
profit was skilfully drawn from this industry: 
"The construction of ships is considerable in this 
province of New England ; they send them to the 
West Indies loaded with all sorts of cargoes which 
are sold there in exchange for the produce of 
those islands, which they thereupon carry to Great 
Britain, where both vessels and cargo are sold, 
and then they send back from there sail cloth and 
other articles to complete the equipment of other 
ships already under construction in their yards." 

So successful did we become in ship-building 
that both the French and the Enghsh govern- 
ments, fearing competition, spread the rumor 
abroad that our wood was so poor that ships con- 
structed of it were of but short life. Fortunately 
for us who are seeking the facts so many years after, 
we find that even abroad there arose a chorus 
of denials of this mercantile fairy-tale. Brissot 
says: "The bad material which is alleged against 
American vessels is a fable. The art of constructing 
vessels has made more rapid progress in America 
than anywhere else. . . . Boston has produced 
some astonishing naval constructors. Having long 
and strenuously studied to combine swiftness with 
strength in vessels, Mr. Peck had acliieved the 
greatest success. It was from his hands that there 
came the 'Behsaire,' the 'Hazard' and the 'Rattle- 
snake,' all so brilhantly distinguished for their 
speed during the last war. The bows constructed 
[3oi] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

by this clever architect have quahties which others 
lack ; they carry a quarter more and sail much more 
swiftly. The English themselves recognize the su- 
periority of American construction. The Amer- 
icans say to have a perfect vessel you must have a 
Boston keel and Philadelphia sides." He feels so 
strongly on this subject that he devotes an entire 
chapter to his argument for American ships: "I 
have seen in this port one of those packet-boats 
intended for the service between France and the 
United States. This ship, the ' Marechal de Cas- 
tries,' was built in America and has the reputa- 
tion of being an excellent sailer; she is the best 
reply to the stories emanating from the Navy 
Department in Versailles against the value of 
American timber and the quality of their con- 
struction." In this connection it is interesting to 
record that the French government thought suffi- 
ciently well of our trees to send Michaux, the elder, 
to America to collect and send home, for planta- 
tion at Rambouillet, such trees as he thought would 
grow in France. During his first year here he 
sent home over six thousand seedhng trees. 

The flourishing condition of American ship- 
building and its resultant product — a strong mer- 
chant marine — were together most helpful to all 
American industries needing foreign markets for 
their wares. Indeed, without the aid of this ship- 
ping, no markets at all would have existed for 

[302] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

many of our products, as Beaujour clearly points 
out: "Having notliing to exchange among them- 
selves but their agricultural produce, their do- 
mestic commerce is practically restricted to that 
along the coast. They have almost none in the 
interior because there are only a few macadam- 
ized roads and an even smaller number of naviga- 
ble canals, but the rivers, most of which are tidal 
very far up, assist interior navigation and also 
the small boat traffic wliich employs annually 
three hundred thousand tons and twenty thousand 
sailors. . . . Foreign trade is, therefore, the most 
important business for Americans who, having 
superseded the Dutch in the ocean-carrying trade, 
have likewise developed their commerce far out 
of proportion to other nations." He adds valua- 
ble observations on the profits of the carrying 
trade. The more he investigates this interesting 
subject, the more is he amazed at the sudden rise 
and spread of our foreign trade : "The commercial 
avidity of the Americans equals and even sur- 
passes the Enghsh. These people have hardly 
appeared upon the ocean and yet already there 
is not a shore on the globe nor a sea that their 
navigators have not explored." Talleyrand, too, 
noticed how promptly our enterprising ancestors 
seized upon new opportunities: "In 1794 I wit- 
nessed the return of the first American expedition 
which had gone to Bengal. The shippers made 
[3o3] 



Mench memories of 

immense profits, and the very next year fourteen 
American vessels set sail for India from different 
ports to dispute with the English the rich profits 
of that trade." Of the remarkahle enterprise 
displayed by this infant among the nations, no 
testimony is more convincing than that of La 
Rochefoucauld: "Boston trades with the entire 
universe. This trait of enterprise in navigation, 
credited to Americans in general, seems in particu- 
lar to belong to New England. Although the com- 
merce of a great number of Massachusetts ports 
to the north and the south of Boston has for sev- 
eral years considerably increased, I hear that the 
commerce of that city, far from having suffered 
thereby, has itself increased for several years and 
has never been in a more flourishing state." 
"There is no jealousy," says Billiard d'Auberteuil, 
"existing between Boston, New York, Charleston, 
and Philadelphia — only a useful rivalry." Nor 
was Boston the only point in New England wliich 
was gaining, for La Rochefoucauld tells us of Salem 
that its population, "which increases yearly, is to- 
day ten thousand. In commerce this city holds 
the sixth rank in America, and the second in 
Massachusetts. The peculiar activity and enter- 
prising genius of its inliabitants suffice to explain 
the extent and progress of this commerce." 

In view of the present great awakening of inter- 
est in our relations with South America, it is timely 
[3041 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

to note that way back in 1787 Soules prophesied 
that, "when you finally become obhged to have 
recourse to foreign trade, Spanish America will 
offer you a fine outlet for your products." His 
plan, however, was to exchange our goods for the 
output of their gold mines, not dreaming that the 
fertile plains of Argentina would some day out- 
strip mines in productive possibilities. Of all the 
references to how widely our merchants and ship- 
pers then pushed their trade, none is more en- 
lightening than La Rochefoucauld's, that " the pur- 
pose of the vessels which go to the west coast of 
North America is to buy sealskins there, which 
they exchange in Canton for Chinese merchandise 
to be brought back to America, and either used 
there or exported to Europe. . . . The ordinary 
length of this trip from Boston of ships from 
ninety to two hundred and fifty tons is sixteen or 
eighteen months. The profit is three hundred 
per cent." The profits of the ocean-carrying trade 
are constantly growing greater but we allow them 
to shp into foreign pockets. In view of the piti- 
fully low ebb to which our statesmen have per- 
mitted our merchant marine to fall, it is pathetic 
to read HiUiard d'Auberteuil's prediction: "They 
wiU without doubt become the greatest sailors in 
the universe, and the sovereigns of the ocean." 
We all want to get back to some such laws as were 
put on our statute books in 1789 by Washington, 
[3o5] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

Madison, and Jefferson, at a time when our ships 
carried but twenty-three per cent of our exports 
and imports, and which laws by 1800 had already 
raised that percentage to eighty-nine per cent, 
and by 1810 to ninety-one and one-half per cent, 
at the same time giving us a merchant marine 
that won for us the War of 1812. In 1828, when 
we were carrying eighty-nine per cent of our trade, 
the agricultural South and West, raising the cry 
of subsidies, combined against the shipping in- 
terests of New England and passed the Reciproc- 
ity Act of 1828, opening our trade to foreign com- 
petition, whereupon there at once began a loss 
which by now has shrunk our total down to a 
paltry and shameful eight per cent. 

This brief sketch of the well-paid labor, the in- 
fant manufacturing industries, and the already 
vigorous foreign trade of three milhon Americans 
as the eighteenth century ended, makes a strange 
contrast to the huge proportions of those three 
elements attained by a hundred million of us, 
their descendants to-day. Given a persistence of 
the national traits which have achieved these re- 
sults, it makes one's brain reel to think of what our 
children's children will witness and enjoy I 



[3o6] 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE ALLIED ARMIES 

Although this book concerns itself only with 
the customs and manners of the people, there 
needs but a brief study of the American army to 
justify the inclusion of this chapter. Our Con- 
tinental army was little else than a temporary 
banding together of citizens, which, its purpose 
achieved, promptly dissolved into the original 
elements. Their social habits while soldiering 
were in no wise altered by that temporary condi- 
tion, nor did they take back into private hfe any- 
thing of what a European understood by the 
phrase "soldierly habits." They were citizens, 
first, last, and all the time, both "the man behind 
the gun," and "the man with the hoe." Reason 
being thus shown for a chapter on the American 
army, our readers would, we feel sure, be rightfully 
disappointed if nothing were said about the splen- 
did French troops to which we owe so much. 
Besides, it would be a pity to neglect the oppor- 
tunity to contrast the two forces, so united in 
spirit, so widely different in appearance. 

In speaking of the allied forces it is, of course, 
[3o7] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

to the French troops that we must first address 
ourselves. The most conspicuous feature of many 
which struck the undisciphned American was the 
remarkable discipline of the French; indeed, so 
striking was it that even the French themselves 
admitted that it was unusual, and mentioned it 
with justifiable pride. Lafayette wrote to Ver- 
gennes, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
January 30, 1781: "The admirable discipline of 
the French forces, besides the honor it did to 
Rochambeau and his officers, fuffilled an even 
more interesting purpose since it gave the Ameri- 
can people the best possible impression of our 
nation." We can imagine the satisfaction with 
wliich that same gallant young officer must have 
reported to his adored Washington, that "the 
French discipline is such that chickens and pigs 
promenade among the tents without anyone 
bothering them, and inside their camp there is a 
field of corn, not a stalk of which has been touched." 
"The deputations of Indians that visited our 
camp," says Rochambeau, "could not get over 
their astonishment at seeing apple-trees still loaded 
with apples although just above tents which our 
soldiers had occupied for three months." The 
French army marched the entire length of America 
in the best of order and discipline, says the Due 
de Lauzun, "a prodigy of which neither the Eng- 
lish nor the American army furnished an exam- 
[3o8] 




Lafayette. 

From a portrait painted by C W. Peale, in 1780, for Washington. 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

pie." Count Fcrsen wrote his father from New- 
port: "We have not yet had a single complaint 
against the troops; such discipline is admirable 
and astonishes the inhabitants." Even the mod- 
esty of Rochambeau did not prevent him from 
saying that "one may adduce as a proof of the 
incredible discipline of this army that during three 
entire campaigns there has not been a sword- 
tlirust nor a quarrel between a single French sol- 
dier and an American one," and adds that "the 
discipline of the French army has been main- 
tained in all its campaigns. This is due to the 
zeal of the Generals, the other officers, and certain 
individuals, and especially to the fine spirit which 
animated the soldiers, which has never once been 
at fault." Chastellux concurs in crediting the 
example of the officers with the admirable dis- 
cipline of their men: "The courage of the Mar- 
quis de Vaudreuil, the good breeding which he 
exemphfied, as well as the simplicity and kindli- 
ness of his ways, — an example followed by the 
officers of liis squadron — have, even more than 
was hoped, captivated the hearts of the people 
who, although they were pronounced enemies of 
the English, had not until that time been friends 
with the French. I have heard it said a hundred 
times in Boston that even during the most per- 
fect accord with London, never had an English 
man-of-war anchored in this port without vio- 
[3o9] 



FRENCH IMEMORIES OF 

lent quarrels between the people and the sailors, 
whilst the French squadron had spent three months 
there without the shghtest dispute arising. Our 
navy officers were received everywhere not only 
as allies but as brothers." Chevaher de la Lu- 
zerne, the popular French Minister, in writing to 
his government, gives a pleasing picture of this 
spirit of confraternity: "The people of the States 
through wliich our divisions passed flocked from 
all sides to see them, the regimental bands played 
in the evening wherever the troops camped, while 
the inhabitants mixed freely with the officers and 
soldiers, almost every march terminating with a 
dance." So careful a commander as Rochambeau 
did not fail to appreciate the results efl'ected by 
his officers' efl'orts: "Each soldier was reduced to 
four ounces of bread, some rice, and some meat, 
but endured these little discomforts with the 
same spirit for which most of his officers had set 
the example when they marched the whole of 
this terrible trip on foot at the head of their 
troops." Nor was this journey a holiday junket, 
says Robin; "a march of two hundred and fifteen 
miles during excessive heat tlirough a country 
almost without supphes, where the soldier often 
lacked bread and was obhged to carry several 
days' provisions, had, nevertheless, caused less 
illness than in French garrison towns. The care 
taken by the officers had, it is true, contributed 
[3io] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

greatly to this, by not permitting the soldiers to 
drink water without some rum in it to take away 
its unhealthy nature. Comte Saint-Maine sent 
ahead at each halt and each encampment to buy 
barrels of cider, which he distributed to his com- 
mand at a very low price. This example followed 
at once by other corps, produced a most advan- 
tageous effect." 

As showing how astute was the French com- 
manding officer, let us hear how the resourceful 
Rochambeau handled some indiscreet insubordi- 
jiation on the part of that delightful raconteur 
(but doubtless trying subordinate) Chastellux: 
"But what deceived the English generals the 
most completely was a letter which the Chevaher 
de Chastellux wrote confidentially to the French 
Minister, in which he boasted of having been so 
skilful as to persuade me to conform my opinion 
to General Washington's, that the siege of New 
York Island was finally decided, and that our two 
armies were going to unite before that place, and 
that de Grasse would be written to come with his 
fleet and force the Bar of Sandy Hoock and the 
entrance to New York Harbor. He complained 
bitterly and in very unpleasant terms of how Kttle 
effect a man of spirit could have upon the imperi- 
ous character of a general who always wished to 
have his way ! The English secret service officer 
sent me a copy of this intercepted letter; it was 
[3ii] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

certainly not with the design of estabhshing peace 
in my household. I summoned the Chevalier de 
'Chastel/u^' and showing hhn this letter tlirew it 
into the fire and left him a prey to remorse. 
You can judge that I did not attempt to undeceive 
him, and you will see in these memoirs just how 
far he enjoyed the confidence of the real project 
which I proposed to the Comte de Grasse." 

Relying on the tried discipline of the French 
army, Lafayette, by his timely advice to his own 
government, eliminated the possibility of friction 
between the two armies, thus contributing vastly 
to their joint effectiveness: "The French Lieu- 
tenant-General was under the orders of Wash- 
ington just like the American Major-Generals, 
for Lafayette, requesting troops to be sent, took 
pains to stipulate in the most positive manner 
that they should be entirely under Washington's 
orders. The Americans had the right of line. 
An American officer of equal grade and date ranked 
a French officer." Think of it ! The officers of a 
trained body of splendid professional soldiers, 
gracefully yielding precedence to the amateur 
officers of a raw and constantly fluctuating militia ! 
Can military history show a more admirable in- 
cident ? The only adverse comments upon French 
discipline are a few from the Comte de Revel, 
and they only have to do with their troops landed 
for a month's siege operations before Yorktown. 

[3l2] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

He admits that they "marauded a Httle, and one 
could hardly blame them, because several de- 
tachments as well as ours had been tricked by 
their purchasing agents, and had only lard and 
spoiled biscuit." Let us hope that he was mis- 
informed when he teUs us that "as soon as the 
town surrendered the wind became more favor- 
able and Monsieur de Mastelh, commanding two 
vessels, entered the anchorage. His comrades 
reproached him with having appropriated all the 
bells of the ships anchored in the river, and besides, 
many others indulged in pillage. A great many 
negroes were taken away and sold on our return 
in our colonies. The entire corps indulged in this 
unseemly behavior, and after pocketing the pro- 
ceeds, secretly mocked the more scrupulous." 

There has undoubtedly never in modern times 
been such a contrast between two bodies of troops 
acting in concert as that between the brilliant 
French and the ragged Americans. We must dis- 
abuse our minds of the notion gotten from picture- 
books that the Americans were attired in Conti- 
nental buff-and-blue, because we shall find that 
the only distinctively American uniform was rags. 
Balch says that when the French troops first 
reached the Hudson River, after their march 
from Newport, "General Washington reviewed 
the two armies at White Plains. The American 
Army, which he inspected first, was composed of 
[3i3] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

four thousand five hundred men at the most, 
among whom were many boys ('some even of 12 
and 13 years of age ! ' says Blanchard) and negroes. 
They had no uniforms and seemed badly equipped. 
In this respect they made a great contrast to the 
French army, with whom General Washington 
seemed very satisfied. The Rhode Island regi- 
ment alone appeared to the French oflBcers well 
set up." Chastcllux speaks of meeting some of 
this same regiment at Hartford the next year: 
"On crossing the ferry I met a Dutchman of the 
Rhode Island regiment. It is the same body that 
we had with us last year, but since then it has been 
recruited and clothed. The greater part of the 
soldiers are negroes or mulattoes, but they are 
strong and robust men, and those wliich I have 
seen make an excellent appearance." Baron 
Closen admires "the American troops, — cliildren, 
blacks, and all," and Robin says: "In some regi- 
ments they have companies of negroes but always 
commanded by a white man." It is clear from 
these three testimonies that our colored com- 
patriots fought as gallantly for their country in 
those early days as they did in the Spanish War 
at San Juan Hill and the Caney Blockhouse, or 
when they made up a fourth part of Commodore 
Perry's heroes on Lake Erie ! They certainly 
cut a far nobler figure in our history than did the 
Tory famihes of our seaboard cities, who, now as 
[3i4] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

then, would be horrified to hear that those col- 
ored patriots have more right to our respect and 
gratitude than some of those so-called "Oldest 
Famihes!" 

Lafayette's description of the difference be- 
tween the English and American troops affords 
only one of the many proofs of how he took to 
heart anything touching the American cause: " In 
New York City, a numerous English garrison lived 
sumptuously whilst a few hundred Americans, 
badly clothed and badly fed, wandered about on 
the banks of the Hudson. Newly recruited from 
Europe and abundantly furnished with every- 
tliing, the English Army in Philadelphia consisted 
of about eight thousand men; that of Valley 
Forge was reduced to five thousand. The un- 
fortunate soldiers lacked coats, hats, shirts, shoes 
— everything. Their feet and legs turned black 
from the frost and often had to be amputated. 
Lacking money, they had neither food nor means 
for transporting it. For whole days together ra- 
tions were lacking to the Army, and the patient 
virtue of the officers and soldiers was a continu- 
ing miracle, renewed every instant." "The men 
are without coats, shoes or arms," wrote Fersen 
to his father. Pontgibaud also paints a pitiful 
picture of the American troops during the dread- 
ful winter at Valley Forge: "Soon I came in sight 
of the camp. My imagination had pictured an 
[3i5] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

army with uniforms, the glitter of arms, standards, 
etc., — in short, mihtary pomp of all sorts. In- 
stead of the imposing spectacle thus anticipated, 
I saw grouped together or alone, a few militiamen, 
poorly clad and for the most part without shoes, 
many of them badly armed but supplied with pro- 
visions, and I noticed that tea and sugar formed 
part of their rations. In passing through the camp 
I also remarked soldiers with cotton night-caps un- 
der their hats and some wearing, instead of cloaks 
or great-coats, coarse woollen blankets exactly 
like those provided for the patients in our French 
hospitals; — I learned later that these were the 
officers and generals. Such, in strict truth, was, 
at the time I came amongst them, the appearance 
of this armed mob, the leader of whom was he 
who has rendered the name of Washington fa- 
mous. Such were the colonists — unskilled warriors 
who learned in a few years to conquer the finest 
troops that England could send against them." 

Distressing as was the state of our men at 
Valley Forge, that low-water mark of the Revolu- 
tion, the Comte de Revel shows how slightly con- 
ditions had improved by the time of the glorious 
victory at Yorktown: "I mounted guard at the 
tavern which was behind our camp until, at four 
o'clock in the evening, I was relieved by the 
Americans who arrived to camp on our left to the 
number of six hundred men.' This troop, as poor 
[3i6] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

as one could imagine, looked exactly like our 
trained bands which mount guard in certain 
cities. Armed with guns, three-quarters of which 
had no bayonets, without uniforms, without any 
distinctive badge for their officers, without tents, 
it seemed nothing more than a gathering of poor 
country-folk, each bringing in his bag something 
to hve upon for a few days, and each constructing 
for himself a hut of tree branches. They knew 
how to break to the right and to the left and to 
go through a sort of manual of arms." Robin, 
who, for a priest, always showed great interest 
in dress, is for that reason especially quahfied to 
discourse to us upon the appearance of our an- 
cestors: "These troops have as yet no regular 
uniforms. The officers and men of the artillery 
are the only ones who have it. Several regiments 
have little white fringed tunics which look rather 
well. The trousers — of cloth — are wide, so as not 
to incommode them in warm weather, and be- 
cause not interfering with the play of the legs 
while marching they, on food less substantial and 
of a temperament less vigorous than ours, are 
able to endure more fatigue than we." Baron 
Closen comments: "The Americans suffered by 
comparison with our army both in appearance 
and equipment, for most of these unfortunates 
had only white cloth jackets, dirty and ragged, 
and many were barefooted. But what of that.^ 
[3i7] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

the sensible man will ask — they are all the more 
praiseworthy and brave for fighting as they do 
when so poorly equipped in every respect." 
Gerard, the French Minister, in a private despatch 
to his government, dated August 12, 1778, gives 
it as his opinion that "the people of America are 
in general too easy-going for the profession of 
soldiering. Each soldier after his service of six 
months with the army takes his clothing home 
with him. The colonies are peopled with country 
folk in uniform, and the army is without them. 
It has already been provided with enough to 
clothe 100,000 men." 

This absence of uniforms and generally dishev- 
elled appearance of our men comes out with dra- 
matic clearness upon the occasion of the culmi- 
nating episode of the War, the day of Cornwalhs's 
surrender, when against Washington's inclination, 
but upon Lafayette's insistence, the English army 
were required to march out between the lines of 
the allied armies and lay down their arms. It 
inflames our pride and yet touches our pity to 
read of the appearance of our ancestors in that 
historic scene. Hear Robin's account of it: "The 
two lines of the combined army extended more 
than a mile. The Americans had the right of the 
line. Their inequality in age and height, the lack 
of uniformity in their ranks, and their ragged 
clothing made the French appear to advantage, 
[3i8] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

who, in spite of their fatigue, always presented a 
neat, warUke and vigorous appearance. We were 
all struck by the good condition of the English 
troops, their number and cleanliness. We had 
not supposed that they were more than three 
thousand. Cornwalhs had ordered the military 
stores to be opened to the soldiers before the sur- 
render. Each of them, therefore, wore a new 
uniform, but this very smartness of dress seemed 
to humiliate them the more when contrasted with 
the distressing condition of the Americans. They 
were ashamed to raise their eyes to their con- 
querors. One after another they laid down their 
arms in the agreed place; care had been taken to 
keep spectators away to diminish their humiha- 
tion. The English officers on their way back had 
the manners to salute even the lowest French 
officers, something which they did not do to Ameri- 
can officers even of the highest grade." 

It is most gratifying to find in several of the 
French authors the frank and friendly admission 
that the American losses at Yorktown were equal 
to those of the French troops; we, on our part, 
must with equal frankness, remember that the 
American column, which in the final assault sus- 
tained most of our losses, was led by Lafayette ! 
Aucteville gives a detailed account of the composi- 
tion of our army and its qualities : ' ' The Republic's 
army was composed of four distinct groups, — the 
[3i9] 



FRENCH IVIEMORIES OF 

American regiments of regulars, disciplined, drilled, 
tried, fit for line of battle, formed a body of about 
sixteen hundred men ; 150 dragoons, well mounted, 
drilled, and good horsemen; twenty-five hundred 
militiamen and five hundred riflemen — a sort of 
mounted light infantry. These two last bodies 
of men are not uniformed, wear large trousers, 
with or without shoes. The last-named form 
especially excellent infantry men, — good shots, 
fit for skirmishing in the woods, but not for line 
of battle. Very few of these troops have tents, 
almost all camping in huts of grass or leaves. All 
are sober and patient, live on corn-bread, undergo 
privations or delays without murmuring, are 
capable of fatigue and long marches, — valuable 
quahties which make of them an infantry wliich is 
unusually mobile in character. Besides, they pre- 
sent a good appearance and most of them are fine 
looking men." "All their soldiers struck me," 
says the Prince de Broghe, "as fine-looking, robust 
and well selected, — the sentinels all carried them- 
selves well." General Dumas speaks several times 
of the intelligence displayed by American officers. 
Perrin du Lac pays a compliment to the marksman- 
ship of our troops in his comment that among the 
factories at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was one for 
"rifles, used by the westerners and by some of the 
Indian tribes for hunting. It was to this murder- 
ous weapon that the Americans owed several of 

[ 320 ] 




Reduced from copperplates of French sketches of American 
military types. 

From the cullectiou of the author. 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

their victories in the War of Independence — their 
skill in its use is so great that it must be seen to 
be believed." 

The few words which Rochambeau employs in 
summing up his opinion of the American forces 
are a credit to the magnanimity of that singularly 
modest and efficient leader: "One should do the 
Americans the justice to say that they conducted 
themselves with a zeal and courage and an emu- 
lation which never left them behind others in all 
the work allotted to them, although they were 
strangers to siege operations." This proves how 
thoroughly they justified Lafayette's prediction to 
Vergennes, the French Minister for Foreign Af- 
fairs, written from New Windsor, January 30, 1781, 
which was as discriminating as it was commenda- 
tory: "I feel myself in duty bound to adjust 
your ideas upon the American troops and upon 
the part which they will take in the operations of 
the next campaign. The Continental regiments 
are as brave and as well disciphned as those who 
oppose them. More hardy, more patient than 
Europeans, they need not be compared in these 
two respects with them. They have some offi- 
cers of merit who (besides those who have served 
in the late colonial wars) are aided by natural 
abihty and trained by the daily experience of 
several campaigns in which, the armies being 
small and the country difficult, aU the Kght bat- 

[321] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

talions served as advance guard and skirmishers. 
The recruits wliich we are awaiting have fre- 
quently served in the same regiments to which 
they are now returning, and have been oftener 
under fire than three-quarters of European sol- 
diers. As for the militia, it is nothing but armed 
peasants with some experience in fighting, who, 
although not lacking in ardor or discipline, will 
be best employed in siege operations. There, 
Monsieur le Comte, is the truthful picture I feel 
in duty bound to give you, and which it is not to 
my interest to touch up because there will be 
more glory to have succeeded with poor material. 
The Chevaher de la Luzerne, who has himself 
seen our soldiers and will give you an exact and 
disinterested account of them, will surely say as 
I do that you can rely upon our regular troops." 
Segur arrived just as the war was concluding, 
and could, therefore, tell us of what the training 
of those seven years of conflict had effected: "I 
had expected to see in this camp awkward sol- 
diers, untrained officers, republicans lacking that 
urbanity which is common to our older civilized 
countries. I recalled those first days of their 
revolution when laborers and artisans who had 
never handled a gun, without waiting for orders, 
rushed in the name of country to attack the Brit- 
ish phalanxes, to whose astonished gaze they 
seemed mere masses of rustics with no mihtary 

[322] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

insignia but hats bearing the device 'Liberty.' 
You can, therefore, judge my surprise at finding 
a disciphned army whose every detail revealed 
order, reason, training, and experience. The 
generals, their staffs, and all the other officers 
showed in their bearing and discourse a certain 
nobility and modesty, and that natural goodwill 
wliich is to me preferable to a politeness whose 
sweet face is but a mask which one is forced to 
make amiable. This dignity of each individual, 
tliis pride inspired by love of hberty and the sen- 
timent of equality had not caused the slightest 
difficulty for the Chief, who commanded them 
without arousing their discontent. To appreciate 
Washington's genius and wisdom it is enough to 
say that throughout all the difficulties of a revo- 
lutionary war, he has for seven years commanded 
the army of a free people without giving his coun- 
try reason for alarm, and without causing Congress 
to mistrust him." An anecdote from General 
Dumas's memoirs shows how greatly Washing- 
ton respected the position he occupied: "General 
Sir Henry Clinton sent a despatch addressed to 
'Mr.' Washington. Taking it from the bearer of 
the flag of truce, and noticing the direction, — 
'This letter,' said he, 'is directed to a Virginia 
planter. I shall have it dehvered to him after 
the end of the war; till that time it shall not be 
opened.' A second despatch was directed to 
[323] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

His Excellency General Washington!" All the 
Frenchmen, with but one exception, were most 
enthusiastic in their praise of Washington as a 
leader, and their appreciation of him as a man. 
Bayard alone thought that posterity would not 
confirm the high opinion of him entertained by 
his contemporaries. Chateaubriand's account of 
our national hero, after a dinner at his house, is 
perhaps the most interesting of all, for he in- 
dulges in an extensive comparison between Wash- 
ington and Napoleon, both of whom he knew 
personally. His conclusions are entirely in favor 
of the former because of his constructive career, 
as contrasted with Napoleon's destructive one. 
"Washington," says he, "has left behind him 
the United States as the great trophy won on his 
battlefields"; "the republic he founded endures, 
while the empire of Napoleon is destroyed." 

Brissot throws a final comprehensive picture on 
the screen, and shows us the citizen returning to 
his ordinary life and exchanging the rifle for the 
plough: "The ravages of this seven years' war 
have been terrible, but as soon as the sword could 
be turned into a ploughshare the earth yielded 
its produce and misery disappeared. American 
soldiers were citizens and landholders before 
being soldiers. They remained citizens while in 
uniform, and when they quitted it returned each 
to his own home. It was not for money that they 
[32/i] 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

fought, nor as a profession, but for their Hberty, 
their wives, their children, their lands, — and such 
soldiers in no wise resemble the bandits of the 
old continent, who are paid to kill their fellow- 
men, and who killed on the high roads on their 
own account when peace compelled their employ- 
ers to discharge them. We have seen in America 
what the history of the world shows in no other 
country except ancient Rome — a General adored 
by his soldiers relinquishing his power when it 
was no longer needed and retiring to peaceful 
private life; we have seen a numerous army 
which was paid nothing, generously agree to sepa- 
rate without payment and its soldiers retire to 
their homes without committing any disorder, 
each tranquilly betaking himself either to his cart 
or other original occupation — occupations which 
we consider menial in Europe." This service 
without pay was nothing new, but had existed 
as early as 1775, when Bonvouloir, a secret agent 
sent to America by the French Government, dis- 
guised as an Antwerp merchant, reported that in 
addition to our paid troops we had "a large num- 
ber of volunteers who want no pay — ^you can 
judge how well people of that stamp will fight !" 
There are almost no references by our French 
authors to an American federal navy, as dis-- 
tinguished from privateers, and indeed it was a 
neghgible quantity during the War of the Revo- 
[325] 



FRENCH MEMORIES OF 

lution. Of the thirteen frigates authorized in 
1775, nine never got fairly to sea, being destroyed 
by our own men or by the EngHsh mostly before 
they had received their armament. There are 
many passages in these French writers, however, 
which are of great value to an historian of the 
American navy, for they unintentionally reveal 
how it was that a nation having no regular fleet 
in 1781 should have added such a glorious naval 
page to its liistory in 1812. We have discussed 
this amazing transformation when considering 
our ancestors' skill in ship-building, but it is not 
foreign to our present purpose to remark here 
that American ship-building, even in the days of 
the Revolution, had acquired great fame abroad, 
where many of our ships were sold. We learn 
from Robin that before the Revolution it was 
from Boston that Great Britain obtained masts 
and yards for her navy. Constant reference is 
also made by St. Mery and others to the large 
number of excellent seamen which our flourish- 
ing coastwise trade was constantly training. 
Furthermore, although the navy had hardly ex- 
isted during the Revolution, privateering was 
carried on to such an extent that three hundred 
vessels were engaged in it, accord hig to the des- 
patch of October 17, 1778, sent by the French 
Minister, Gerard, to his Foreign Office. But even 
so late as Beaujour's observations during the 
[3261 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA 

opening years of the nineteenth century, we had 
"difficulty in keeping up a flotilla of a few frig- 
ates and an Army which could not be compared 
in number with that of even a German prince. 
Their Navy is really only in miniature, and their 
Army but a skeleton formation." He foresees, 
however, the possibility of that rapid increase 
and strengthening of our navy which only a 
couple of years thereafter was to become so 
powerful: "The Navy of the United States is 
only in miniature; it consists of but seven or 
eight frigates, the same number of corvettes, 
some galleys for bomb-throwing and a few gun- 
boats, the whole amounting to about four thousand 
men and five hundred cannon. This feeble navy 
is hardly comparable to that of Algeria, by which 
it is continually insulted, but the Americans could 
easily possess a much stronger one, because they 
have all the necessary material for constructing 
the vessels and nearly one hundred thousand sail- 
ors to man them. Adding up the different armed 
forces on land and sea, the total is now only about 
nine thousand men, — that is to say, there is 
in the United States hardly more than one man 
in a thousand employed in military service, while 
there is not a country of Europe with less than 
one in one hundred." 

There are those, to-day, who urge that national 
defense (without which there can be no national 
[327] 



FRENCH MEMORIES 

self-respect) does not need a strong navy, both 
constructed and in construction. They should 
not forget that the two months needed to build a 
ship in the glorious days of 1812 differs so widely 
from the two or three years now required for that 
same purpose as to make all the difference be- 
tween a country always ready to preserve its 
dignity and one liable to many millions of loss 
from raids upon its seaport towns during those 
years spent in constructing what should already 
exist I 



[328] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

FRENCH AUTHORITIES CONSULTED AND RECORDS 
EXAMINED 

Archives, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris. 
Archives, Ministere des Colonies, Paris. 
Archives, Ministere de la Guerre, Paris. 
Archives, Ministere de la Marine, Paris. 
Archives Nationales, Paris. 

AuBERTEUiL, HilUard d': "Essais Historiques et Politiques sur 
les Anglo-Americains." Brussels. 1782. Two volumes and 
atlas, 303 and 315 pages. 

AucTEViLLE, ChevaUer de: "Journal de la Campagne de la 
Chesapeak." Archives Nationales. 

Balch, Thomas: "Les Frangais en Amerique." Paris, Phila- 
delphia, Leipzig, 1872. One volume, 237 pages. Also a 
second volume published by his famUy in 1895 in English. 

Bayard, Ferdinand M.: "Voyage dans ITnterieur des Etats- 
Unis," etc. Paris, 1797. One volume, 336 pages. 

Beaujour, le ChevaUer Felix de: "Apergu des Etats-Unis," etc. 
Paris, 1814. One volume, 274 pages. 

Beaurepaire, Chevalier Quesnay de: "Memoires." Paris, 1788. 

Published by Virginia Historical Society, vol. II, N. S., p. 

166, etc. 
BERQtnN-DuvAixoN: "Vue de la colonic espagnole du Missis- 
sippi," etc. Paris, 1803. One volume, 327 pages. 
Blanchard, Claude: "Journal de Campagne, Guerre d' Amerique 

(1780-1783)." Paris, 1881. One volume, 134 pages. 
Bonnet, J. E.: "Etats-Unis de I'Amerique a la fin du 18^me 

Siecle." 
(Bonnet, J. E.): "Reponse aux Principales Questions," etc. 

Lausanne, 1795. Two volumes, 312 and 469 pages. "Par 

un Citoyen des Etats-Unis." 
Bossu: " Nouveaux Voyages." Amsterdam and Paris, 1778. One 

volume, 392 pages. 

[329] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(BouRG, Baron Cromot du): "Journal do mon Sejour en Ame- 
rique." An English translation published in Magazine of 
American History, 1880-1881. 

M. N. (Captain M. Bourgeois): "Voyages interessans," etc 
London and Paris, 1788. One volume, 507 pages. 

Brissot, J. P.: "Memoires sur les noirs de I'Amerique Septen- 
trionale." 

"Brissot, J. P.: Correspondance et Papiers." CI. Perroud. 
Paris. 1912. One volume, 192 pages. 

Brissot, J. P.: "Examen critique des voyages de Chastellux." 
London, 1786. 

Brissot, J. P. (Warville): "Nouveau Voyage dans les Etats- 
Unis." Paris, 1791. Three volumes, 395, 460, and 448 
pages. 

Brissot de Warville, J. P., et Etienne Claviere: "De la 
FranceetdesEtats-Unis,"etc. London, 1787. One volume, 
344 pages. 

Broglie, Prince de: "Journal du Voyage," etc. Published in 
" Melanges de la Societe des Bibliophiles frangais," tome IL 
Paris, 1903. 

Carre, M. IL: "I^es Emigres Frangais en Amerique." Revue de 
Paris, May 15, 1898. 

Charlus, Comte de: Letters in Archives Nationales, Paris. 

Chastellux, Marquis de: "Voyage de Newport a Philadelphie, 
Albany," etc. Printed on board French fleet at Newport — 
"de rimprimerie Royale de I'Escadre"; only 23 copies 
printed, 1781. 

Chastellux, Marquis de: "Voyages de M. le Marquis de 
Chastellux dans TAmerique Septentrionale." Paris, 1788. 
Two volumes, 408 and 251 pages. 

Chateaubriand, Vicomte de: "Voyage en Amerique (1791)." 
Paris, 1838. One volume, 611 pages. 

Chotteau, Leon: "Les Frangais en Amerique." Paris, 1876. 
One volume, 438 pages. 

Claviere, Etienne, see Brissot. 

Closen, Louis Baron de: "Journal." Unpublished, in Library 
of Congress, Wasliington. 

Colleville, Vicomte de: "Les Missions Secretes du General- 
Major Baron de Kalb." Paris, 1885. One volume, 161 
pages. 

[33o] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CoixOT, General Victor: "A Journey in North America." 1826. 
"Voyage dans rAmerique Septentrionale," etc. Two 
volumes, 416 and 427 pages, and atlas. 

(CoNDORCET, Marquis de): "Quatre Lettres d'un Bourgeois de 
New Heaven sur 1' unite de la legislation." Published in 
Mazzei's "Recherches Historiques," etc. 

Crevecceur, M. St. John de: "Lettres d'un Cultivateur Ameri- 
cain." Paris, 1787. Three volumes, 482, 444, and 593 pages. 

Crevecceur, J. Hector St. John: "Letters from an American 
Farmer." New York, 1904. One volume, 355 pages. 

(Crevecceur, J. Hector St. John): "Voyage dans la Haute 
Pensylvanie," etc. Paris, 1801. Three volumes, 427, 434, 
and 409 pages. "Par un membre adoptif de la nation 
Oneida. Traduit et public par I'auteur des Lettres d'un 
Cultivateur Americain." 

"Saint John de Crevecceur, Sa Vie et Ses Ouvrages." Paris, 
1883. One volume, 435 pages. 

Daudet, E.: "L'exil et la mort du General Moreau," in Revue 
des Deux Mondes, November 15, 1908. 

Deux-Ponts, Comte Guillaume de: "Mes campagnes en Ame- 
rique." Boston, 1868. One volume, 176 pages. 

DoNioi., Henri: "Histoire de la participation de la France a 
I'etabUssement des Etats-Unis d'Amerique." Paris, 1886- 
1893. Five volumes. 

Du Lac, Perrin: "Voyage dans les deux Louisianes." Lyon, 
1805. One volume, 479 pages. 

Dumas, Lt.-Gen. Comte Mathieu: "Souvenirs." 1839. Three 
volumes. 

Du Petit-Thouars, Chevalier Aristide-Aubert: "Memoires et 
Voyages." Paris, 1822. One volume, 404 pages. (Pref- 
ace speaks of two other volumes but they were never 
published.) 

DuPONT DE Nemours, Pierre Samuel : " Sur I'Education Nationale 
dans les Etats-Unis d'Amerique." Paris, 1812. One volume, 
159 pages. Written in 1800 at Jefferson's request. 

Fauchet, Joseph: "Coup d'oeil sur I'etat actuel de nos rapports 
politiques avec les Etats-Unis." Paris, 1797. 

Fersen, Comte Axel: "Diary and Correspondence." Boston, 
1902. One volume, 355 pages. 

GoussENCouRT, Chevalier de: "Journal." New York, 1864. 

[33i] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Grasse, Comte de: " Mcraoires." Archives Nalionalcs, Marine, 
151, 86; 6397. Also a few copies printed for use at his 
court-martial. 

Jacquemart, Nicolas Frangois, see Roux. 

lussERAND, J. J.: "Rochambeau in America, from unpublished 
documents." Washington, 1912. One volume, 52 pages. 

JusSERAND, J. J.: "Washington and the French," in "Exercises 
for the Birthday of Washington," Union League Club, 
Chicago, 1912. 

Kalb, Baron de, see Colleville. 

Lafayette, General: "Memoires, Correspondance et Manu- 
scrits." Paris, 1837. Six volumes, 495, 501, 520, 448, 514, 
and 814 pages. 

Lameth, Theodore de: "Memoires." Paris, 1913. One volume, 
329 pages. 

Lauzun, Duo de: "Memoires." Paris, 1858. One volume, 409 

pages. 
B.. D.. (LoziEiRES, Baudry des) : "Voyage a la Louisiane, etc., 1794 

a 1798." Paris, 1802. One volume, 382 pages. 

LoziERES, Baudry des: "Second Voyage a la Louisiane," etc. 
Paris, 1803. Two volumes, 414 and 410 pages. 

M. Jh. M. (Mandrillon, M. Jh.): "Le Voyageur Americain," 
etc. Amsterdam, 1782. One volume, 197 and 166 pages. 
Purports to be a translation from an anonymous English 
book written by order of Lord Chatham, the Prime Minister. 

M. Jh. M. (Mandrillon, M. Jh.): "Le Spectateur Americain," 
etc. Amsterdam, 1784. One volume, 128, 307, and 91 
pages. " Par M. Jh. M. Negociant a Amsterdam et Membre 
de I'Academie de Bourg-en-Bresse." 

Marchand, Etienne: "Voyage autour du monde." etc. Paris, 
1798. Six volumes, 294, 529, 474, 494, 559, and 158 pages and 
many maps. 

Marnezia, Marquis de Lazay: "Voyage," etc. Paris, 1792. 

Marnezia, Claude Frangois Adrien. Marquis de Lazay: "Lettres 
ecrites des Rives de I'Ohio." Fort Pitt and Paris. An IX de 
la Republique (1800). One volume, 144 pages. 

(Mazzei, M.): "Recherches Historiques et Politiques sur les 
Etats-Unis." Colle and Paris, 1788. Four volumes, 384, 
259, 292, and 366 pages. "Par un Citoyen de Virginia." 

Menonville, Comte de: "Journal." Published in vol. IV and 
vol. VII of Magazine of American History. Paris, 1802. 

[ 332 ] 



V 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

MiCHAux, Andre: " Memoires, 1787-1797." American Philosoph- 
ical Society Proceedings, 1889, pages 1-145. Notes pre- 
sented by his son to Society in 1824. 

MiCHAxrx, Frangois Andre: "Voyages a I'Ouest des Monts Al- 
leghanys," etc. Paris, 1804. One volume, 312 pages. 

MiLFORT, le Gal.: "Memoire ou Coup d'oeil rapide sur mes dif- 
ferens voyages," etc. Paris, 1802. One volume, 332 pages. 

More, Comte de: "Memoires (1758-1837)." Paris, 1898. One 
volume, 339 pages. A reprint. 

NoAiLLES, Vicomte de: "Marins et Soldats Frangais en Ame- 
rique." Paris, 1903. One volume, 439 pages. 

Pontgibaud: "Memoires du Comte de M." 1828. See More, 

Comte de. 
Pontgibaud, The Chevalier de: "A French Voltmteer of the 

War of Independence." Paris, 1897. One voliune, 209 pages. 
Prevelaye, Marquis de la: " Memoire sin* la campagne de Boston 

en 1778." 
Revel, Joachim du Perron, Comte de: "Journal Particulier." 

Peu-is, undated. One volume, 287 pages. 
Robin, M. I'Abbe: "Nouveau Voyage dans I'Amerique Septen- 

trionale." Philadelphia and Paris, 1782. One volume, 222 

pages. 
RocHAMBEAu, Marechal de France: "Memoires Militaires, 

Historiques et PoUtiques." Paris, 1809. Two volumes, 

437 and 395 pages. 

RochefoucaulehLiancourt, (Due de) La: "Voyage dans les 
Etats-Unis d'Amerique." Paris, 1799. Eight volumes, 365, 
349, 384, 349, 400, 336, 366, and 244 pages. 

RosTAiNG, M. de: "Journal." Archives I'lnst. Guerre. 

(Roux, Sergeant-Major): "Le Nouveau Mississipi, . . . par un 

Patriote Voyageur." Paris, 1790. One volume, 44 pages. 
St. Mery, Moreau de: "Voyage aux Etats-Unis de I'Amerique." 

1793-1788. New Haven, 1914. One volume, 440 pages. 

Savarin, Brillat : " Physiologic du Gofit." Paris, 1853. One vol- 
ume, 526 pages. 

Segur, Comte de: "Memoires, ou Souvenirs et Anecdotes." 
Paris, 1826. Three volumes, 488, 438, and 601 pages. 

SOULES, Francois: "Histoire des Troubles de I'Amerique An- 
glaise." Paris, 1787. Four volumes, 379, 365, 420, 272, and 
36 pages. 

State Department, documents at Washington, D. C. 

[333] 



BIBLIOGR^U^HY 

Talleyband, Prince de: "Momoires," etc. Paris, 1891. Five 
volumes, 457, 567, 469, 499, and 650 pages. 

Tour du Pin, Marquise de la: "Journal d'une femme de cin- 
quante ans." Paris, 1914. Two volumes, 405 and 391 
pages. 

VoLNEY, C. F.: "Tableau du Climat et du Sol des Etats-Unis." 
Paris, 1803. Two volumes, 532 pages, consecutively num- 
bered. 

Note. — The above list generally excludes memoirs written by 
Frenchmen who had not visited the United States, because 
their comments on American customs and manners were at 
second hand. In addition to the foregoing there has also been 
examined such pertinent material as is to be found in the Biblio- 
theque Nationale, Paris, the Boston Public Library, the Library 
of Congress, Washington, Harvard University Library, the New 
York Historical Society Lil)rary, the New York Public Library, 
the Library of the State Department, Washington, etc. 

SOME OF THE AUTHORITIES IN ENGLISH 
CONSULTED 

Baldwin, Governor Simeon E.: "The authorship of the Quatre 
Lettres d' un Bourgeois de New-Heaven," etc. New Haven, 
1900. 

Bradt.ky: "The Fight with France for North America." New 
York, 1902. 

Durand: "New Materials for the History of the American 
Bevolulion, translated from Documents in the French Ar- 
chives." New York, 1889. 

FosDiCK. L. J.: "The French Blood in America." New York, 
1911. 

GARniNKR, General Asa Bird: "The Order of the Cincinnati in 
France." 1905. 

GiBBs: "Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and 
Adams." 

Perkins, J. B.: "France in the American Revolution." Boston 
and New York. 1911. 

RosENr.ARTRN, J. G.: "French Colonists and Exiles in the 
United States." Philadelphia. 1907. 

Rosenthal, Lewis: "America and France." New York, 1882. 

[334] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Sparks, Jared: "Diplomatic Correspondence of the American 
Revolution." Boston, 1829. 

Stevens, B. F.: "Fac-simile of MSS. in European Archives 
relating to America, 1773-1783." 

Thwaite, R. G: "Early Western Travels, 1748-1846." Cleve- 
land, 1904. 

Tower, Hon. Charlemagne: "The Marquis de la Fayette in 
the American Revolution." Philadelphia, 1901. 

Trescott: "Diplomatic History of the Administrations of 
Washington and Adams." 

TucKERMAN, H.: "America and Her Commentators." New 
York, 1861. 

Turner, F. J.: "Correspondence of the French Ministers to 
the U. S. 1791-1797." 

Tyler, Moses Coit: "Literary History of the American Revolu- 
tion." 

WiNSOR, Justin: "Reader's Handbook of the American Revolu- 
tion." 



[335] 



w 



:j 



qtc. 



